We were all girls like you once.
I was a young girl just like you before marrying your father.
We all went through the same things.
We’d just play sports and take a cold shower.

My story is the story of hundreds of people.
The story is that of differences.
The difference that isn’t allowed,
Which you’re scared of and hate,
Because you know it’s haram.

I remember the pushing,
The kicking,
And the yelling.
I remember every time I said no,
And how he continued anyway.
At times,
I felt as if I were transforming into a pillow,
By the way he’d close his eyes,
And forget that I was even there.
It killed me.
gender violence; sexual violence; rape; masculinity; sex; sexuality

Were women just created for pleasure?
It doesn’t matter what we wear, how we look, or what we say.
Answering back means you’re playing hard to get.
I recently found out that people in our society think married women are easy.

I was 19 years old when I decided to have sex.
I didn’t know what sex was.
I didn’t know what a physical relationship was.
Everything I knew about them came from the media.
sex, sex education, sexuality, body image, gender violence

Like all girls, I’ve experienced sexual harassment many times.
By strangers in the streets, by a relative that took advantage of my innocence,
and by a brother who would spy on me in my room when I was unaware.
body image, gender violence, sexual violence, harassment, sexuality

When you would try to touch me,
I felt like you couldn’t see me.
You could only see the body you were about to touch.

We would sometimes look at each other and not say anything.
We knew what we did, but we didn’t talk about it.
It’s funny how the whole thing passed smoothly just because we didn’t talk about it.
But if the same thing had happened with other people and they talked about it,
It could have made a huge difference in their relationship.

It felt as if I was in a wrestling match.
That his purpose was to invade and destroy everything.
That he had no intention to listen.
That survival was for the fittest.

It didn’t feel normal or spontaneous.
Between being scolded by your conservative [female] relative for doing something “immodest” and listening to your friends whispering about touching certain [private] areas on maids’ and female cousins’ bodies, you eventually learn to associate the opposite sex’s body with shame.
There has got to be something shameful about it.