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.
At school, boys and girls were separated.
The boys would watch the girls going home,
And choose one to send a letter to.
Then they’d be together.
A girl was walking to a supermarket near her house after iftaar when a kid—no older than 18—said the most disgusting things to her as he fondled himself.
I’m afraid of having children.
I’m afraid of raising a son or daughter in this country.
“C’mon, you need to have a baby soon.”
“Why don’t you want to have children?”
“Have you gone for a check up?”
It was me and two or three other girls on the bus.
Two of them were veiled and one was wearing the niqab.
We were all standing in a corner.
We were surrounded by men.
There was a man sitting with his legs wide open and laughing loudly.
It was as if he was the owner of the bus and could act any way he liked.
I learned one day that my neighbor whom I used to play with was getting married.
She was almost 16 years old.
“I’ve got something that my husband will take from me and throw away tomorrow morning,” she said.