Untitled
Bone window
I am coming through
in sin, bearing seed,
vertebrally, I stand
with structural faults,
held by blind nails
hiding the salt in the marrow.
I cruise through blue veins
with murderous intent,
through delicate cartilage
and mucous membrane,
to cup a hip or breast
I am sexed.
The Cure for What Ails You
One of the worst, or at least most difficult things about being gay and Muslim is that…well, you’re not really both gay and Muslim at the same time. At least, I haven’t been able to find that reconciliation in my own life just yet, and it’s frustrating,...Read More »
Bride Denied: Media Coverage of Mukhtaran Mai
In early April, Mukhtar Mai, the Pakistani survivor of a tribal-ordered gang rape who prosecuted her rapists rather than accepting a tradition of suicide after rape, married her bodyguard, Nasir Abbas Gabol.
Scathing condemnations of the marriage came from Pakistani writers, women’s groups, and news outlets....Read More »
Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?
And by cowboys, I mean straight people.
When we conceived of Chay Magazine, we did not imagine that we would lack for content about heterosexual life – heterosexual love, heterosexual sexuality, marriage, divorce, dating, harassment. We were expecting all of these things. What’s more, we were really worried...Read More »
Pakistan, Islam and Homosexuality
Homosexual desire generally manifests itself in the parks and underground clubs of Pakistani cities. It is indeed ironic that moral condemnation serves to exacerbate an issue than alleviate it. Hiding from family members and peers, differently oriented persons venture out to separate their religious identity from their inner disposition and...Read More »
Hindutva, Pakistan & Diasporic Sexual Polemics
Coming into my adolescence in Canada, I had immediately identified with anyone being brown, regardless of the person’s national, religious, regional or caste affiliations. It is not that I had not been aware of these differences. I certainly was made conscious of caste and religious differences as...Read More »