Repro/Pelvic Health

Sex and the Ummah

August 28, 2014 by The Heart Team Leave a Comment

originally published on loveinshallah.com

by Nashwa Khan

T E N

I’m about ten-years-old, and have an unwavering love for books. I devour the Harry Potter series,The Magic Treehouse, and tons of chapter books. We can’t afford them and can’t justify purchasing them, so my mom drives my sister and me to the public library every week, where I get to use a computer and roam the bookshelves for hours.

Once I’ve read all the books for my age group, I become adventurous. I wander through the aisles and find a book out of place. It intrigues me. When I open it, there it is a magnified black-and-white image of sperm that was taken under a microscope. I shut the book immediately. Now I have the image of swimming sperm seared into my memory.

I slump back to my mother. I feel guilty, but unsure of why I feel guilty. I confess to her that I opened a scientific book and it had a photo of sperm. My mom does not flinch, but neither does she seem to know how to handle it. We walk out, my basket empty of books, my shoulders burdened with guilt, my heart heavy. I felt awkward but cannot find the source of my discomfort.

This is my sex education, for now.

II.

T H I R T E E N

I’m a high school freshman. The condom stretched over the banana during gym class does not entirely click for me as the demonstration is interrupted by giggles. We all know that the white girl who volunteered to demonstrate is sexually active, so it’s time to laugh at our awkwardness. Even more awkward is the video about female “hygiene” products – narrated by a guy with an Australian accent, dressed in safari gear.

My basic sex education: putting a condom on a banana is somehow comical. I laugh along because, as a brown girl, I need to fit into the sea of sexually active whiteness to survive the next four years.

This is my sex education, for now.

III.

F O U R T E E N

I am fourteen. School, clothes and rotating friends are what keep me going. A trip to Morocco to see my grandparents over the summer, and a cousin’s wedding in Toronto are my priorities. Sex and sexual health education are in my life’s periphery; they will not be taught in gym class again. The condom on banana performance is where my knowledge remains.

Sex may be far away from my mind, but it creeps in slowly. We are sitting at my cousin’s new in-law’s house the day after the wedding. Sitting squished on couches, eating chat masala, drinking chai, gorging on roti, I am much younger than my cousin’s friends, but I am included in their sitting space.

My cousin walks down the stairs to the living room, limping. Her friends begin giggling. I am out of the loop, annoyed by their telepathic communication and understanding. I grab an aloo kabab and munch away. She joins our circle.

Everyone starts whispering, “How was it?”

I begin to understand their giggling. At 26, their giggling is just slightly advanced from the condom-banana awkward giggling of my age cohort. Again, to fit in, I giggle, but I feel even more awkward than I did in gym class.

I do not understand why I am giggling. My cousin came limping down the stairs and looked hurt. Why laugh at someone who is hurt? My mom taught me that that was not respectful. TV taught me that sex was romantic and didn’t hurt. I’d flip the channel in shame when a sex scene came on with my siblings or parents in the room, but I caught enough to know that consensual sex shouldn’t result in limping.

My cousin whispers to her best friend about the pain. I stop laughing. Her friends look concerned, but say that it is her obligation and “that just happens the first time.”

I realize that what we need in Muslim youth communities is sexual health education based on the Qur’an and consent. But I cannot articulate my new learnings.

This is my sex education, for now.

IV.

TWENTY ONE

I am studying for my MCAT, discussing the menstrual cycle, and how in high school I learned a bit about a healthy ovulation cycle.

My mom tells me that my paternal aunt was not allowed to take science classes in high school. My dad’s family were new immigrants to Canada. In Pakistan, they did not educate girls or boys on reproductive organs so of course they would not learn here either.

At twenty-two, as an aspiring healthcare worker, I learn that my aunts did not have basic knowledge of reproductive health, of their own bodies, and the beauty of these bodies given to us by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala.

I wonder now as they praise me for studying whether they understand what I am studying.

TWENTY TWO

I am twenty-two. University has taught me a lot, both academically and experientially. I am full of self-awareness.

I am the first of over twenty cousins in my extended family to move out on my own before being married. I am careful to “be good” and not hazard my parents having “I told you so’s” flung at them by every auntie from Lahore to Karachi.

I identify as a feminist. Feminism brought me closer to my faith. I volunteer with a student health education center on campus and other groups in the community. In these roles I teach people about consent, conduct pregnancy tests, and do peer-to-peer supports.

At twenty-two, I realize why I am an anomaly in my South Asian Muslim family. I may be unmarried, but I know that sex should not hurt. And, if it does, it should stop.

I realize that my upbringing- filled with love and joy – is not a rare narrative among Muslim youth. I realize that as sheltered as I felt in my Muslim community, I was blessed with progressive, mixed-race parents. I realize that though they avoided some awkward conversations along the way, my mother explained certain aspects of growing up more than the parents of my Muslim peers did. I appreciate that, but I also had to do a lot of self-study. I love my parents for the freedom and values they gave me.

At twenty-two I grasped all of this at once, because of an encounter while volunteering. A young woman came into a clinic I volunteered at. I saw myself in her, the brownness, her discomfort in asking strangers for a pregnancy test. I volunteered to administer the test and counseling right away because I felt like she was my sister. I thought I could ease her out of the invisible cloud of shame she was constrained in.

I dipped the stick into the pee cup and began to softly ask her questions. As the timer ticked, I emphasized how common and unshameful it was for young women to come in for testing and counseling. I let her know where she could be privately tested for sexually transmitted diseases, as per protocol.

Then, she asked me what a pap smear was. Her question knocked the wind out of me.

The memory of the day after my cousin’s wedding came flooding back. The reality is that young Muslims are becoming sexually active and embarking upon lifelong sexual journeys without even basic knowledge about their bodies. The fact is that being sexually active is part of our religion, yet this complexity and knowledge is left out.

How are women meant to make informed consensual decisions while missing critical pieces of this complex puzzle? To be sexually active in the 21st century without understanding that sex is not supposed to leave you in pain, or without knowing what a pap smear is?

This is abhorrent, but it is not the fault of young women.

I felt overwhelmed with pain and anger after this realization. Islam is sex positive as a religion, within the bounds of marriage. The shame we feel in our communities due to cultural taboos hurts so many people, especially the women that I see myself and my loved ones reflected in. This is where the gap exists in our Ummah: basic health discourse is non-existent in most Muslim families.

As a community, we tend to ignore sexual health education until marriage, and then expect the couple to consummate their union immediately. By doing this, we ignore basic health and consent education. The shame I felt at ten is the shame that is perpetuated into adulthood, muzzling honest, knowledgeable discussions among friends, and the dissemination of sexual health education in communities. It leaves our women hurt, couples confused, and the community vulnerable to situations where women can be abused falsely in the name of Islam.

Education is a tool we cherish as Muslims, but we do not always use it to address issues that make us uncomfortable. Sex is inevitable for most, which makes early sex education a must. Sexual health education does not lead to zina. This myth needs to be dismantled. Our community needs to see more peer educators – with bodies and skins like theirs – addressing these topics, so that we do not feel ashamed of our bodies, as we do now.

Today, many Muslim women submit to non-consenual sex believing that sex is a requirement of them when that is not the case. Our girls need to be able to defend themselves and feel dignified in their feelings and choices. Many women are complicit in perpetuating this cultural shame. The Quran is a beautiful book that can guide the discussions we have with youth in our community. I’ve included resources below to help start these necessary conversations.

—

Nashwa Khan identifies as South Asian/African Diaspora living and learning in Hamilton, Ontario. She calls Florida home. Over her undergraduate career in Hamilton, she served on a number of councils including the City’s Status of Women Committee, as Space Allocation Chair of McMaster’s Women and Gender Equity Network, and currently chairs the city’s Youth Advisory Council. Her work has been published in a variety of places including ThoughtCatalog, Guerilla Feminism, and the HuffingtonPostBlog. She is an avid storyteller and lover of narrative medicine. Feel free to tweet her @nashwakay.

Resources: (By no means is this list exhaustive – leave your suggestions in the comments!)

Check out the Twitter hashtag #MuslimSexEd

Youth + Tech + Health digital apps & resources

Umm Zainab & Zainab bint Younus on the birds & the bees

50 Shades of Gray: What Muslim Teens Need to Know

Embracing Sexuality by Zainab bint Younus

Making Love, the Islamic Way

Sex Ed materials by HEART Women & Girls for Muslim youth including Let’s Talk about Sex Education, Sex Ed for Muslim Youth, & Ending Sexual Exploitation

I Don’t Own My Child’s Body

Scarlet Teen: Teen Sex Ed for the Real World

Sex & the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World

Headscarves & Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sex Revolution

Innocence Lost: The Religious & Psychosocial Ramifications of Hyper-sexualized Culture on the Next Generation

Muslim Matters articles on sexuality

Sexuality in Pakistan

Islamic views on rape

UPDATE: Additional resources via HEART Women & Girls

Puberty/Reproductive Health

Menstrupedia

Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health

Women’s Health Foundation

Advocates for Youth

Sex, Etc

Go Ask Alice

WebMD

Answer, Sex Ed, Honestly

Sexual Violence

Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network

Rape Victim Advocates (Chicago)

Rape Victim Advocates hotline

1-888-293-2080

Sex Education & Research

Centers for Disease Control

Guttmacher Institute

Pregnancy

Pregnancy Resource Center

Planned Parenthood

Babycenter

1 in 3 – Abortion

HIV/STIs

Reaching out to All HIV Positive Muslims in America

Kaiser Family Foundation

UNAIDS

LGBTQ

LGBTQ Muslim Retreat Resource List

General Empowerment

Forward Together

Intimacy in Ramadan

July 24, 2014 by The Heart Team Leave a Comment

Because there aren’t enough hours in the night to eat, pray, sleep AND have sex

by Nadiah Mohajir

Just recently, in casual conversation as well as in several private conversations, I have heard too many women (and in one case, a man) express frustration with trying to manage their intimate lives in addition to their spiritual and domestic responsibilities when the fasts are seventeen hours or more. When one is abstaining from food, drink, and sex during the daylight hours, other responsibilities don’t suddenly stop. Mothers are still mothering, often small children. Husbands and wives are still working long hours at their professional jobs. And no matter how simple (or elaborate) the iftar (breaking of the fast) meal, it still needs to be prepared. As does, depending on family tradition, the suhoor, or pre-dawn meal. And so, I have heard many express frustration that there simply isn’t enough time from sunset to dawn to eat, perform your obligatory and recommended prayers, catch up on sleep, AND fulfill your spousal duties. So what’s a spouse to do?

It should be stated that sex after the breaking of the fast is permitted, all the way until the early morning prayer. This is explicitly made clear in the Holy Quran.

“Permitted to you, on the nights of the fasts, is the approach to your wives. They are your garments, and ye are their garments, Allah knoweth what ye used to do secretly among yourselves.” — Quran 2:187

Furthermore, there are many narrations about the Prophet and his companions about being intimate after sunset, with one narration about a companion actually breaking his fast with intercourse, as opposed to with food and drink. There are also narrations encouraging husbands to seek special permission from their fasting wives to have sex after sunset, to be considerate of how tired fasting may have made their wives.

All of this sounds great in theory, but when the fasts span the majority of the day, and the time between iftar (breaking of the fast) and suhoor (pre-dawn meal) is mere hours, during which one might also want to stand in congregational prayer, read quran, prepare the next morning’s meal, take care of any children or other family members needing care, what’s one to do when one spouse clearly wants to, but the other is too exhausted? This becomes an interesting question, also, for wives who feel guilty and ashamed of refusing their husband, because of the cultural pressures on the wife to sexually please her husband. So while this is an interesting question, this question remains unaddressed – a quick search on google will show that the majority of articles written on sex in Ramadan have to do with permissibility and expiation if one does have sex during the fast. While I personally, don’t also have many answers for this issue either, I would like to offer some tips to at least start this conversation.

1) Talk with your spouse about your expectations and theirs before the heat of the moment. Try to have this conversation even more Ramadan begins, so you both know what to expect. Don’t wait until one of you is ready to be intimate to have this talk.

2) Practice extra mercy. Ramadan is the month of extra blessings and extra mercy. Be considerate of all that your spouse is doing while fasting, and that he or she just may not have the energy once the fast is over. Yes, this may result in some additional frustration but exercise patience and don’t take it personally if your spouse is not in the mood. It’s not that they don’t love you or want you or don’t desire you, it’s just that they may be depleted – in every sense of the word. Be flexible and change your plans. For example, if you regularly pray in the mosque but don’t return until well after midnight, after your spouse is already in bed, offer to pray at home so that you do not stay out that late.

3) Try to divide domestic responsibilities so that it does not disproportionately fall on one spouse’s, often the wife’s, shoulders. One of the reasons that wives may feel exceptionally exhausted in Ramadan is that in addition to the lack of energy one experiences from abstaining from food and drink, they also may be responsible for preparing the pre-dawn meal, the iftar meal, any cleanup that is associated with that, as well as caring for children, if there are any. This does not diminish the spouse’s contribution of spending long hours at work, as that is also difficult while fasting. Caring for others, while fasting, requires a special kind of energy.

4) Renew your intention. Sex in Islam between husband and wife is considered to be an act of worship, though often times, many don’t view it as that and instead approach it as if it is a chore, taking one away from other responsibilities. Instead of seeing sex with your spouse as taking you away from worship, why not see it as a different form of worship and gain the reward for it?

5) Eat well. A good diet, especially when one is fasting, is essential to keep up with to maintain energy. Reflect on your suhoor and iftar diet, and ask yourself if you can add anything to your diet to boost your energy levels. We often make the mistake of approaching our health by compartmentalizing it – our physical health, our emotional health, our spiritual health, our sexual health – when in fact, they are all related. If one suffers, it undoubtedly has an impact on the others.

And so now, I open it up to you. Without revealing personal or specific details about your own intimate life, what are some things we can do to start this conversation, and offer some support to couples dealing with this? Fasting inherently makes one irritable, adding sexual frustration to the equation doesn’t make Ramadan any easier. Let’s start this much needed conversation!

The Reproductive Health Needs of a Growing Population: Muslim Singles

February 19, 2014 by The Heart Team Leave a Comment

by Nadiah Mohajir

As the Muslim community begins to see a growing number of single men and women, several issues need to be addressed. What can we do as a community, as well as institutionally, to support this growing group of individuals, particularly with respect to their reproductive health and mental health needs? Have we created a space for them in our communities where they can feel safe, free of judgement, to honestly share the struggles of being unmarried and navigating two extremely distinct, often contradictory worlds: the hypersexualized culture that is impossible to avoid, that bombards young people as early as toddler age, and the religious community that expects unmarried individuals, especially women, to remain chaste and unaffected by the pressures around them, and their natural desires, with the intention of honoring a religious tradition that reveres chastity and does not permit sexual relationships outside of marriage. Have we created a space for this growing group of individuals that does not attach their self-worth to their marital status and ability to bear children?

Author Zahra Noorbakhsh tells her story about losing her virginity before marriage in Love, Inshallah and explores these contradictory worlds. By Iranian standards, she explained, speaking of virginity so publicly is shameful and embarrassing. By islamic standards, she imagined the response to be very unforgiving, referring to herself as a “whore.” By American standards, she finally explains, a typical response would try to find reasons to explain why she lost her virginity so “late.” She explains how she spent all of her adolescence and early twenties fearful of sex, only to realize that she did not want to save her virginity for marriage. “I hadn’t yet been in love,” she explained. “But didn’t want to be in a relationship defined by the status of my “hole.”

A similar theme emerged in a conversation I recently had with a friend – who describes herself as a 35-year-old virgin – she asked the question of whether our community is sanctifying sex to an unhealthy degree. She discussed this in regard of her own struggles of remaining abstinent, and how she is beginning to view preserving her virginity as a burden, having much power over her, almost defining her worth, loaded with much shame and embarrassment if she ever pursued a sexual relationship while remaining single. When I asked her why she chose to remain abstinent, her answer was multi-layered: she identified as a Muslim and wanted to honor God’s command to remain abstinent until married. Furthermore, she admitted she was afraid of her mother; that somehow, her mother would know if she had sex and that was enough to keep her from doing it.

Haroon Moghul poignantly reflects on the pressures men face in his essay in Salaam, Love, stating that “my religion says a man should not be alone with a woman. But somebody should have told me a man should not feel so alone that being with a woman is the only way he can feel life is worth living.” This summed up an underlying theme in many of the stories in this anthology: that it is hard to be unmarried, and Muslim, ESPECIALLY if one is trying to honor the guidelines of the Islamic faith. A number of the men in the stories of Salaam, Love mention turning to masturbation, and more disturbingly, pornography, as the alternative to committing fornication or having sex outside of marriage.

Being immersed in such a hypersexualized society, while simultaneously delaying the age of marriage is an emerging public health that we need to think about addressing as a community. While we obviously cannot change Islamic legal rulings regarding the impermissibility of premarital sex, which is sound and wise for its own reasons, we have to consider how we will support this growing group of Muslims – because turning to porn and other coping mechanisms may seem in the short term, a better option than zina (fornication), but in the long term, is contributing to many serious issues threatening the health of the Muslim community’s marriages.

The first step to starting this dialogue is reclaiming the terms shame and modesty. In my understanding, there is a difference – and a pretty huge one – between shame and modesty. Islamic tradition and teachings encourage individuals to be modest with respect to their bodies and their sexuality. Muslims are encouraged to keep their sexual encounters private and between the spouses. That being said, Muslims are not, however, expected to feel shame or embarrassed about their bodies or sexual desire, provided that they commit to exercising those desires within the confines of a marital relationship. The unfortunate reality is that the Muslim community has repeatedly fused the words modesty and shame into one. It has been deemed immodest and shameful to speak about sex, let alone express sexual desire. We have associated shame with sex – which in some ways may in fact have a “protective” factor for unmarried individuals. In other words, individuals, especially women, may be hesitant to engage in premarital sex because it is deemed to be shameful. However, HEART’s work in the community has indicated that that often times, women carry these feelings of shame with them into their marriages – despite the fact that Islam permits sexual intimacy between the spouses. As such, this is both not surprising and extremely fascinating in terms of what we need to think about changing the discourse. Currently, we live in a society that has socialized women to feel shameful to have sex – whether they are single or married. Even if that “shame” may work in the favor of protecting single women from engaging in premarital sex, it is problematic that that same sentiment/attitude is carried with them into their married lives. And so I ask again: does the Muslim community sanctify sexuality to an unhealthy degree? If so, how do we change the discourse? It is time to take back the discourse and engage in abstinence because of a motivation besides just shame. How do we facilitate that conversation to begin to encourage abstinence without attaching a lens colored with shame to it?

Another step may be to change the discourse around sexuality and virginity. Laci Green, a young, and some would say controversial, sex educator challenges the current language around virginity. She argues that phrases such as “she lost her virginity,” and “he took her virginity” are disempowering and reinforce gender roles, where the man is the aggressor who has something to gain while the female is passive. Rather, she suggests that young women and men adopt more positive language around sexuality, such as making one’s “sexual debut” when referring to the first time they have sex, arguing that it makes for more empowered decision-making.

While Laci Green’s sex education techniques may not be exactly appropriate or culturally-sensitive to the Muslim community, she raises an important point that may be worth exploring. Is making a radical change such as the one suggested above a step to empowering young women with respect to their sexuality – even if, or rather, ESPECIALLY IF, they choose to abstain? Will it lend to healthier sexual attitudes before and during marriage? Will it take back the overwhelming power associated with virginity and make women feel content with their decisions regarding sexuality – particularly if they choose to abstain?

Finally, it’s important to see what other faith and cultural communities have done to address these issues. There are a number of religious communities that value abstinence until marriage. What have they done to engage the discourse around abstinence? Are there feelings of shame associated with sexuality in those communities?

Menstrupedia: A culturally-sensitive resource on Menstruation

February 11, 2014 by The Heart Team 1 Comment

by Nadiah Mohajir

I recently came across Menstrupedia.com, a virtual resource developed by some individuals in India who wanted to create a guide for women and girls on staying healthy during their periods. The website offers information through different media, and aims to dispel many of the myths and misinformation that have been prevalent in India for hundreds of years, such as the common misunderstanding that women should not bathe or leave the home during their periods and that they should keep their periods a secret from men.

Sites like Menstrupedia.com are pioneering in their effort to shatter the stigma and shame around an issue that should be seen as a natural part of life. Their approach should be used as a model as we as a community start thinking about how to present these topics in a way that is both medically accurate as well as respectful of our faith’s tradition of modesty. Here are some ways the founder of this resource has brilliantly managed to do both:

The site uses accurate, medical information from reputable sources, along with animated non-offensive graphics and cartoon people as visuals to explain the menstrual process, hygiene and care, and puberty.
The site uses a FAQ system to dispel common myths prevalent in India.
The site has a blog that uses storytelling, factual articles, short video clips and poetry using imagery, references, and media that are relevant to India to raise awareness about topics concerning menstruation.

This is a great website for mothers and daughters to look through together to start a dialogue about menstruation and puberty. The hush-hush nature and embarrassment that is associated with menstruation in the Muslim, particularly the South Asian, communities creates many unhealthy attitudes towards menstruation, perpetuates misinformation and myths, and serves as an obstacle for many young girls to learn about their bodies and be comfortable with them. Through HEART’s fieldwork, we have met numerous young Muslim girls and even adult women, as well as males, who did not demonstrate having adequate knowledge about menstruation. We met:

a fifth grader who missed three weeks of school, feigning illness because she thought she was dying when she started her period, not knowing what it was, too afraid to ask her mother or another adult.
adolescent girls who were not permitted to attend sex education classes, and therefore did not understand the biology of menstruation.
adolescent girls and adult women who did not know the fiqh of menstruation and ghusl (the Islamic process of ritual purity after menstruation is over).
adolescent girls and adult women who did not know how to use a tampon.
adult women – both married and unmarried – who did not know their basic anatomy.
women and girls who carried with them many myths surrounding menstruation and other reproductive health topics, such as you can’t swim when you have your period, and you are not a virgin if you wear a tampon.
boys and men who had limited accurate knowledge about the biology and anatomy of menstruation, as well as many many myths surrounding menstruation.

The stories of the women (and men) above are just a few reasons we need to change the status quo and start having conversations with both males and females about menstruation and other reproductive health topics. We will not be able to facilitate systemic change or influence cultural attitudes toward menstruation if we do not actively engage in dialogue. The founders of Menstrupedia.com saw a timely opportunity and took steps to challenge the status quo. I was really pleased to see this effort and look forward to seeing many more like this.

Repro/Pelvic Health

Because there aren’t enough hours in the night to eat, pray, sleep AND have sex

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