The Underground Girls of Kabul (26 page)

But the response from one Kabul woman was typical of several other married women’s view of sex: “If it were up to me, my husband would never touch me again.”

W
HERE SEXUALITY IN
general is suppressed and the idea that women can be sexual at all is a matter of indifference or fear,
homo
sexuality is at the next level of taboo. If sex barely exists, homosexuality absolutely does not—and certainly not in the case of women. An attempt to speak of homosexuality with Afghans will most often render nervous laughter or an outright refusal to engage in conversation.

Even among educated Afghans, the idea that women could be sexual with other women is both ridiculous and mysterious, since, as was explained to me, it challenges the very definition of what a sexual act is. As one man said: Without a penis involved, sex just seemed physically pointless for both parties.

Comparative sociologist Stephen O. Murray and historian and anthropologist Will Roscoe, who have scoured history and literature for definitions of homosexuality in the Muslim and Arab worlds, found
only “paltry” references to lesbianism throughout time:

In their book
Islamic Homosexualities
, they also quote a passage from Muslim geographer and cartographer Sharif al-Idrisi, who lived in
the twelfth century. This rare writing acknowledged the early existence of women who preferred women; it even offered an intriguing explanation of why they did—while at the same time explaining how they posed a danger to society:

Note how he underscores that this occurrence is due solely to the lack of suitable male partners—so-called situational homosexuality. Also, he suggests that an
educated
woman may become more sexual and therefore choose women over men as sexual partners. The implicit conclusion remains a concern to this day with many in Afghanistan: Education for women can be detrimental for society, and ultimately the end of mankind. It is best to keep women’s intellects in the dark, or they may get strange ideas, such as choosing to abandon men in favor of women, with the added consequence of no more babies being born.

Moving to the other gender,
male
homosexuality is referenced only in a range between ridicule and disgust by most Afghan men; such acts are committed by the lowest of people. Male homosexuality officially does not exist in Afghanistan, either, nor in neighboring Iran or most other Islamic societies. At most, it is viewed as a sin, a crime, or both.

This includes some stark contradictions, however.

In Afghanistan, as well as in the historical context of male homosexuality, a man may well engage in homosexual
activity
. That, however, does not automatically turn him into a
homosexual
. A distinction is made between the active and the passive role in the sexual act, between “taking” pleasure and submitting to someone. The penetrator is the manly man, whereas the penetrated is the weaker party, likened to how a woman submits to a man. The receiver may not be a homosexual, either, unless he shows signs of liking it too much, in which case he may actually be denounced as a homosexual person, or a
bedagh
: a word for the passive homosexual.

Male homosexual behavior, in the active role, is traditionally explained in Afghanistan by the lack of available women. Women should also primarily be used to create children, not necessarily used for pleasure.

Pederasty can be justified similarly. Since men’s sexuality is a force of nature that must be released, exactly how that occurs is of lesser importance. A younger, weaker boy may even be preferable, since he cannot be dishonored the way a woman can be. There is also less risk of retaliation by an infuriated family: Raping a boy is a lesser offense than raping a woman. As a bonus, the perpetrator is considered macho and as far from “homosexual” as one can possibly be.

When children’s rights organizations have attempted to explore the abusive practice of
bacha bazi
, or “boy play,” in Afghanistan, in which young boys are traded as dancing child entertainers and also kept as sex slaves by military commanders and other powerful men, they are often met with a wall of silence; many Afghans confirm its existence, but few will admit it happens in their own communities.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN special representative on children and armed conflict, came right out and said it in 2011: “
Very powerful warlords and regional commanders from all the security forces as well as anti-government forces have young boys who are taught to dance.”

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also warned in 2010 that
the number of boys sexually abused through this traditional
activity is likely small in proportion to the more commonplace sexual abuse of “ordinary” boys by “ordinary” men. So despite legal and religious censure of homosexual behavior, research indicates that man-boy sexual relationships are considered neither exceptional nor criminal in the traditional or modern cultures of Afghanistan.

Afghan men are often equally careful with their phrasing; they will never speak in the first person, but sometimes say they “know someone” who as a young boy was subjected to a violent assault by another, older man. In his study on Pashtuns during the 1980s, anthropologist Charles Lindholm reported: “
The first sexual experiences of many, if not most, boys is with one of their passively inclined peers, or with an older man who is a confirmed
bedagh
. Older men still may cultivate a handsome young protégé who will accompany them everywhere, though the practice is hardly universal.”

These underage victims of sexualized violence, who have been assaulted by other men and are too ashamed to ever speak of it, are also expected to eventually grow up to function sexually with women in marriage, in order to have children.

What we may think of as homosexuality, involving two consenting parties, had not been much documented in Afghanistan until an Afghan refugee to Canada wrote about his experiences.

Author Hamid Zaher recounts how he began feeling attracted to other boys in the eighth grade. He states that whereas sexualized abuse of young boys is widely accepted in Afghanistan, it is “absolutely impossible” for two adult men to have an equal, consensual sexual relationship there. For that reason, his road to discovering and exploring his own sexual orientation was a painful one, which included a diagnosis of mental illness and culminated in his fleeing his country.

Just as female homosexuality took much longer than male homosexuality to be recognized in most of the West, it may take decades before an Afghan woman is able to define her sexual orientation as lesbian or bisexual. Or anything else. In a distant future, each human may not need to be defined as
either
heterosexual or homosexual in
a lifetime, but with the recognition that a person’s sexuality can be more fluid and situational.

B
UT IN A
place where marriages are arranged and sex is about reproduction, shreds of romance still endure, as demonstrated by the giddy female wedding guests who find allure in what is most forbidden. Even though marriages for love are rare in Afghanistan, tales of them abound, and both women and men harbor fantasies of unions inspired by the appearance of adventurous and often tortured but passionate relationships in literature and poetry. The rush of a high school crush may have to last a lifetime here.

Like many Afghan women, Shukria wears no wedding ring. But there is an intriguing bulky silver ring on a right-hand finger that she initially refuses to address. Until I dare suggest she may be the object of a secret crush by whoever gave her the ring. She denies it: No, no, it’s not like that.

“I had a very good friend who was close to me. The ring is from him. But I have never been in love.”

There are two identical rings. When her friend gave her the ring, he kept the other one. He, too, has worn it ever since.

It sounds very romantic. I look to Setareh for support. She keeps her game face. To her, I’m the one who knows nothing of love. We have had a disagreement in the car. She has asked me to cover for her when she meets up with “a friend” from the university. Should her father call, I am to say that she’s with me. I tell her it’s much too dangerous. What if there is a blast, and I can’t tell her parents where she is? When I am responsible for her, we should be together, I insist. In turn, she has let me know I am a cold-hearted machine.

I know Setareh will eventually just gamble and tell her father she is with me anyway, and I can only pray she doesn’t get caught or get too close to a suicide bomber. I know she fears neither.

Shukria does not waver on the ring. There is no romance. Only the eight men she counts as friends. Her gang from childhood. They
still stick together. When she gets sick, they come to visit, and they all check in regularly. Shukria is especially close to one of them—they went to school and later worked at the hospital together. His parents love her like their own child. He still calls her Shukur. To demonstrate how their bond has been misinterpreted before, Shukria recalls how his mother once thought that she was in love with him and arrived at Shukria’s parents’ house to make a marriage proposal on behalf of her son.

“I was so upset. I went to his mother and said, you have misunderstood everything. We are not in love; I am a man and if I was together with your son we would be in fights all the time—is that what you want? I was very angry. And she said, ‘But I thought you were in love.’ ”

Shukria laughs. The idea is too ridiculous. They were brothers! Not some sappy romantic couple. He eventually married, too, as she knew he would.

Shukria is not entirely sure how love is defined.

“He is my best friend, and sometimes I think that if something happened to him, how could I live? Maybe that is love.”

She has tried to have civil conversations with God on the topic. But too often, they turn into silent, one-sided arguments. Perhaps she should be grateful; God made her both a man and a woman in one person. Yet she feels completely alone most of the time. The noise inside her head is painful, and only occasionally can she shut it down. It works best when she is at work, in her scrubs. It also feels good when she gets to be protective of other women, just as Shukur always was. Whenever she sees a woman being harassed by a man, she will jump in and forget all her womanly manners. She doesn’t pull a knife anymore, but she will not hesitate to shame any man by getting too close, waving her arms, and threatening to beat him up.

Shukria has seen this dynamic played out in pirated American DVDs. There is always a hero and the woman he rescues. Even when the main character is a woman, she will fall in love with a man, who is always stronger. It gives Shukria a great deal of satisfaction to watch
the men scoop up women in distress. And like every other woman with a television in Kabul seems to do, Shukria follows the soap operas from India and Turkey.

“When you see stories of love, can you relate to the feeling?”

“No. But I feel love for my children, my parents, my friends, and my coworkers. Love is not just for a partner, I think.”

Perhaps the notion of romantic
love
is another social construct. Do we actually learn how to fall in love and expect certain behavior from those we fall for? If it’s reciprocated, we call it chemistry. Just as giddy Afghan teenage girls speak dreamily of marriage as presented in Bollywood movies, perhaps we, too, have read books and watched many movies to learn what romance looks like and how it should feel. We perform certain rituals we have been taught are romantic. Then we go about piecing together our own romantic comedy script in the best way possible, with the material we have already collected.

Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher at Stanford University has
defined three different forms of love:
Lust
, which is mainly sexual attraction.
Romantic attraction
, defined by an intense yearning for another person, not unlike a substance addiction, where the affected craves someone or something. The wanting is the key feeling, just as a heroin addict needs a fix. Finally
attachment
, signified by a calm feeling of deep union with another person.

Shukria has no answers as to why romance never appealed to her. But she knows why she enjoys her television so much. Even though the concept of romance between the protagonists feels foreign to her, it still excites her to follow a love-struck couple for a very specific reason: “I like happy endings.”

That may be what is truly universal.

Nader

B
Y LAW
,
WOMEN
are allowed to drive in Afghanistan. Just as they are formally allowed to inherit property and divorce their husbands. They just don’t, most of the time.

Nader wore a head scarf while driving once, just to please her brothers and to humor what they insist God requires from her. It nearly got several people killed, herself included. At the sight of a covered head behind the wheel at one of Kabul’s many checkpoints, there ensued a traffic jam, with other drivers honking their horns, yelling, and throwing their fists in the air. They hollered out from their windows and thrust their cars toward her. Others pulled ahead, hitting the brakes in front of her, trying to trap her like a little mouse.