Soniah Kamal describes what it’s like for a girl who wants to read racy books in Pakistan (and many other places as well):
“What are you reading?” might be a polite conversation starter in some parts of the world, but here it stopped being smalltalk and instead became the manifestation of control.
In the Pakistan I returned to, control was focused on preventing the unmarried from gaining sexual knowledge or having pre-marital sex. Because sex outside wedlock is illegal in Islam, Pakistanis—Muslims everywhere—form entire morality enforcement industries to make sure the genders are kept separate in order to avoid temptation. Thus the “concerned citizens” telling me to wear long-sleeved apparel only and cover my chest with a dupatta. Everything is everyone’s business, and those of us girls who were curious about sex were suspect because good girls from good Muslim or Pakistani families do not even think about sex. And they certainly do not write about sex.
Well, yes, writing racy books is even dicier than merely reading them.
I try to respect other cultures and leave people be. But this mentality about girls, women, literature, and sex is totally abhorrent to me.
Here at home, I find this kind of fundamentalist-fueled sexual repression to be worthy of contempt, mockery, and unrelenting political opposition.
Girl Power!
Read Books!