figured things out.
Before we finished talking that afternoon, Mama put her physiology lesson into a spiritual context. God had arranged men’s and women’s bodies to complement each other perfectly, she said. The pleasure that came with sex was one of God’s gifts to each of us, like the gift of being able to have a baby. Men and women were equal in marriage and equally entitled to the gift of that pleasure, she said, but they had to wait until after they were married. So that was why only married women had babies, I thought to myself. It was haram to have sex before you were married.
Three years later, when I was in ninth grade, they taught us these things in school. I was the only one who raised my hand to answer questions without shyness, the only one who didn’t giggle. “It should not be ayeb to talk about sex,” I said. “Sex is a natural thing. It is one of God’s gifts to us.”
Like all Iraqi children, I was raised to obey my parents, tell the truth, respect my teachers and other adults, and do nothing to dishonor my family. These are complex concepts, but to break any of those rules was essentially ayeb, which means “rude” or “discourteous.” To whisper in front of anyone or to interrupt an adult or question their judgment was ayeb . To enter a room of adults without being invited was ayeb in a culture where adults and children usually socialized separately. Women in particular had to be careful not to do anything ayeb, because any behavior that was less than modest and courteous could draw shame or aar not only upon themselves, but on their whole family. Even in our home, the most liberal I knew, curiosity was encouraged, but questioning the judgment of adults was not. My parents were as secular as any I knew, but it was still haram to cause them even to sigh with concern, because that was written in the Quran. So I asked many questions, sometimes to the point of impertinence, but when I felt my world begin to turn upside down, I couldn’t ask what was wrong.
Uncle Adel began spending the night at our home, and I assumed at first that he had had an argument with his wife. Then Aunt Samer, Uncle Adel, and my parents began gathering in our living room and closing the door nervously behind them so we wouldn’t hear what they were saying. I looked to Mama for an explanation, but the expression on her face told me I was not to ask. Something was clearly worrying them, yet every time I tried to approach anyone I would be asked if I had finished my homework, or told to please watch my baby brother. I spent so much time with Hassan during that time that when he began to speak, he sometimes called me “Mama.” My initial reaction to their rebuff was hurt. I was supposed to be an adult, and they were still treating me like a child, or maybe a ghost that everybody just looked straight through. One day, I lay down on the sofa and covered my head with a sofa pillow in hopes I could make myself faint so someone would pay attention to me the way they did to Mama when she fainted. But nobody noticed. I fell asleep and woke up an hour later, tired and sweaty. Didn’t adults realize a child doesn’t stop observing what’s going on around her? Didn’t my parents understand how lonely it was being inside my own brain with all these questions it was ayeb to ask?
One night when I heard my parents talking in their bedroom downstairs, I tiptoed out of my room and sat down on the terrazzo tile staircase to listen to what they were saying. I had never eavesdropped on anyone before, and it was a sign of how scared and left out I felt that I would even consider it. But I learned something important that night as I stared down at my bare feet on the step: my mother’s cousin, Aunt Ishraq, and her family were no longer living in Iraq. Aunt Ishraq had an enormous house in Al-Mansour with girl cousins my age and older boy cousins I had kind of practiced flirting on.
“Mama, why didn’t Aunt Ishraq and my
Before we finished talking that afternoon, Mama put her physiology lesson into a spiritual context. God had arranged men’s and women’s bodies to complement each other perfectly, she said. The pleasure that came with sex was one of God’s gifts to each of us, like the gift of being able to have a baby. Men and women were equal in marriage and equally entitled to the gift of that pleasure, she said, but they had to wait until after they were married. So that was why only married women had babies, I thought to myself. It was haram to have sex before you were married.
Three years later, when I was in ninth grade, they taught us these things in school. I was the only one who raised my hand to answer questions without shyness, the only one who didn’t giggle. “It should not be ayeb to talk about sex,” I said. “Sex is a natural thing. It is one of God’s gifts to us.”
Like all Iraqi children, I was raised to obey my parents, tell the truth, respect my teachers and other adults, and do nothing to dishonor my family. These are complex concepts, but to break any of those rules was essentially ayeb, which means “rude” or “discourteous.” To whisper in front of anyone or to interrupt an adult or question their judgment was ayeb . To enter a room of adults without being invited was ayeb in a culture where adults and children usually socialized separately. Women in particular had to be careful not to do anything ayeb, because any behavior that was less than modest and courteous could draw shame or aar not only upon themselves, but on their whole family. Even in our home, the most liberal I knew, curiosity was encouraged, but questioning the judgment of adults was not. My parents were as secular as any I knew, but it was still haram to cause them even to sigh with concern, because that was written in the Quran. So I asked many questions, sometimes to the point of impertinence, but when I felt my world begin to turn upside down, I couldn’t ask what was wrong.
Uncle Adel began spending the night at our home, and I assumed at first that he had had an argument with his wife. Then Aunt Samer, Uncle Adel, and my parents began gathering in our living room and closing the door nervously behind them so we wouldn’t hear what they were saying. I looked to Mama for an explanation, but the expression on her face told me I was not to ask. Something was clearly worrying them, yet every time I tried to approach anyone I would be asked if I had finished my homework, or told to please watch my baby brother. I spent so much time with Hassan during that time that when he began to speak, he sometimes called me “Mama.” My initial reaction to their rebuff was hurt. I was supposed to be an adult, and they were still treating me like a child, or maybe a ghost that everybody just looked straight through. One day, I lay down on the sofa and covered my head with a sofa pillow in hopes I could make myself faint so someone would pay attention to me the way they did to Mama when she fainted. But nobody noticed. I fell asleep and woke up an hour later, tired and sweaty. Didn’t adults realize a child doesn’t stop observing what’s going on around her? Didn’t my parents understand how lonely it was being inside my own brain with all these questions it was ayeb to ask?
One night when I heard my parents talking in their bedroom downstairs, I tiptoed out of my room and sat down on the terrazzo tile staircase to listen to what they were saying. I had never eavesdropped on anyone before, and it was a sign of how scared and left out I felt that I would even consider it. But I learned something important that night as I stared down at my bare feet on the step: my mother’s cousin, Aunt Ishraq, and her family were no longer living in Iraq. Aunt Ishraq had an enormous house in Al-Mansour with girl cousins my age and older boy cousins I had kind of practiced flirting on.
“Mama, why didn’t Aunt Ishraq and my
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