Boreal

LOVE, SEX & ISLAM

Sex in the Here-And-Now

The Nurse

My apartment remained welcoming to women in distress. Two of them stand out to this day. The first was a nurse. That particular morning, she had been giving an elderly psychiatric patient his bath when she left “for only a minute,” but when she returned, he had drowned.

We talked for hours. I tried to convince her that it was not her fault, getting her to talk about the good times. Still, every now and then she would wipe away a tear. When it was time to go, she had enough of her wits about her to realize that she was drunk; maybe it was not a bad idea to simply cross the street, with my assistance, and sleep it off at my place, as I had suggested.

I helped her get undressed, unfastening her bra and freeing two impressive milky white breasts. My Lucette used to say that more than a handful is wasted. My nurse gave no sign that she wanted me to test that theory just then, and besides, my mind was not there. Even if it had been, I could not see myself taking advantage of her vulnerable state.

She managed to remove her own panties—why she didn’t keep them on, I don’t know, and the mystery would only deepen—then asked if I had a t-shirt she could put on.

I had already pulled back the covers when she got into bed and laid her stomach with one leg up facing away from me while leaving enough room for me to lie beside her. She was somewhat of a big booty girl. Unlike Mary, my nurse was more of a flat big booty girl. Nothing wrong with either variation, except that her moderately curved behind and choice of sleeping position meant that my t-shirt now reached not much further than the small of her back, leaving nothing to the imagination as I drew the covers up and over her bum, all the way up to her shoulders.

I lay next to her and started stroking her beautiful blonde hair. Her eyes were closed as if asleep, but every now and then she would roll her hips into mine before quickly rolling them back to their original position. She was obviously struggling with a decision.

Eventually I fell asleep with one arm across her broad shoulders. What I like about the morning after is talking about what did, or did not, happen the night before and why. She was more than willing to do that.

First of all, she made it clear that she did not ordinarily go to bed with married men. She had dated one, hoping it would lead to something more, but it had proven a complete waste of time and she was not going to make the same mistake again.

Last night she had been tempted. However, she liked to have sex face-to-face and only face-to-face. It’s not that she did not like it from behind, but she hated anal sex and said you could never trust a man not to shove it ‘in there’, making you scream in pain, if you let him near it. I asked her if that had actually happened. She said yes. S

he also said that, last night, she had been tempted, but couldn’t make up her mind. This would explain the rolling hips and why she took off her panties and exposed herself the way she did. Why didn’t I stop playing with her hair and instead, with her offering it all on a platter, so to speak, trace my way down and help her decide? I’ll never know. Sometimes, being a gentleman is not being a gentleman.

I believe her when she said she didn’t care for the pain of anal intercourse, but perhaps not that night, when she may have wanted to be punished for losing a patient but could not go through with it.

It may be reaching, but it is a way of linking anal sex as punishment in Islam. A Sunni Muslim acquaintance intimated during a dinner party that anal sex is halal if done to chastise a spouse. Part of this conversation was recounted in Remembering Uzza, where Gerry takes on my experience as his own:

Gerry: I was at a party where I was having a conversation with the wife of a reporter from Tunisia. When her husband tried to join our conversation, she waved him off. He was not pleased. Later that evening, when I had a chance to talk with him with his wife within earshot, he said she would get it tonight. I asked what he meant by that. He said he was going to punish her that way.

Uzza: And what way would that be?

Gerry: Oh, come on, Uzza, stop it. You know what he meant.

Uzza: You go to interesting parties.

Gerry: But is it true? Do Muslim husbands use anal sex to punish their wives?

Uzza: I would not know. I am not married. Archie: You said that his wife heard him. What did she do?

Gerry: She looked at him and shrugged her shoulders as if it was no big deal.

Uzza: Maybe it was not, what do you say, that big of a deal. And I am not saying that to disparage her husband’s manhood. From what I have been told, it can be quite painful and the Koran does sanction pain as a way of disciplining wives. And Muhammad did say that you should not beat someone about the face and we are definitely nowhere near there.

Archie: That leaves out a blow job as punishment.

Uzza: Very funny…

You have to admire a woman’s courage when it comes to sex, where just getting to the Big O is fraught with perils. When exposed and vulnerable, there is a risk of rape, such as when a partner decides to forcibly enter the back passage without consent or preparation and then pound away as if it was her vagina, causing unnecessary pain and suffering.

Some women, those whose fathers and brothers have a warped sense of honour, risk more than a pain in the ass for experimenting with intimacy in violation of a sexless god’s rules as to when it is appropriate for them to do so and with whom.

Then you have the unfortunate women living in countries where Hadd offences define what they can or can’t do when it comes to interactions with men without risking their lives.

Hadd offences are violations of God's law where both the crime and the punishment are specified in scriptures. The most well-known Hadd offence in the Koran has to be the following:

5:38 As for the thieves, whether male or female, cut off their hands in punishment for what they did, as an exemplary punishment from Allah. Allah is Mighty and Wise.

In the hadiths, the most infamous Hadd offence has to be Muhammad’s exhortation to summarily execute any Muslim who abandons Islam.

If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him!

Bukhari 52.260

This succinct incitement to cold-blooded murder is probably the single most influential scripture of all. When Muhammad boasted that, “I have been made victorious with terror,” Bukhari 52.220, it was not only about using normal peoples’ fear of a sudden brutal death to get them to believe, but to keep them believing.

Hadd offences involving sexual misconduct such as adultery or sex outside marriage, like that of apostasy, invite the death penalty. For a woman, this is usually a sure thing.

If a cleric or Islamic scholar is available, he is typically called upon to pronounce the death sentence. If none can be found, a holy warrior or any man able to quote a relevant revelation or hadith (a saying or example of Muhammad) can substitute as both judge and executioner. This was the case in a gut-wrenching video from Afghanistan where a woman is seen standing before a holy warrior, her hands out-stretched, pleading for mercy. She has been accused of having what Allah in His Koran condemns as ‘illegal intercourse’. After listening to her supplication, the warrior raises his rifle and shoots her point blank.

Allowing mostly young religious zealots to summarily execute combatants and non-combatants, including mothers and daughters, increases the terror factor, which, in practical terms, means that a relatively small group of determined, pitiless individuals can control a large population.

Then there were the pathetic scenes, which may soon be repeated, of women being trucked into soccer stadiums following the Taliban's first takeover of Afghanistan; they were forced to kneel on the ground before being shot in the back of the head, to the obvious pleasure of the bearded men of all ages milling around. What most of these women were deemed guilty of doing can easily be surmised.

***

My nurse acquaintance and I got dressed and went out for breakfast. She was glad we hadn’t done anything. I, obviously, was not. When leaving the restaurant, she asked if I would divorce my wife for her. After Anne, I would not leave my Lucette for anyone, and that was a promise I intended to keep.