Sex Matters

This is something I have been thinking about for a while now as I have had several discussions with some of my friends and especially those looking to get married. Sex and intimacy in marriage is something that isn’t really discussed in Muslim communities. It’s treated like a taboo and we’re told it’s dirty or disgusting so we go into marriage with this mentality and it causes so much stress for so many people.

Girls are told it’s a bad thing and boys are told they can have sex all they want when they’re married so we give them no guidance and then leave them alone in a room. This isn’t okay. We can’t drill this into the youth and then wonder why they have marriage issues or issues in intimacy.

We need to be teaching intimacy properly, in Islam it’s an act of worship and we are rewarded for it. So then how can we be treating it like it is something dirty? Just to stop girls from being sexually active outside of marriage we scar them. If it’s an act of worship why aren’t boys taught they also need to satisfy their wives and women have desires too. Why do we tell them that their wife is there to please them but not that they are also there to please her?

We have created a society where we simultaneously say sex is bad but the moment a couple is married everyone is telling them they need to have children. How do you think this is going to happen? They think, baby, and they magically get one? NO! So then why create this environment and turn something beautiful and a way to express love into something that girls will think is disgusting and boys think it is just for their pleasure?

When we do teach about intimacy it is more a list of rules and regulations and while that is absolutely important. Intimacy is more than that and should solely be reduced down to that. It’s a way of expressing love and satisfying each others desires. It should be mutual and both should feel satisfied. Women are especially shamed for thinking about their sexual desires even though it is natural. Every single person has a sex drive and for women to feel shamed by it isn’t healthy. Both men and women need to learn to control their desires but they shouldn’t be shamed for having feelings. So when they go into a marriage that feeling of shame lingers and then the women don’t feel like they can express their desires because it’s a shameful thing to do they often are left unsatisfied and unable to say anything.

We need to learn how to have these conversations with our youth, we need to create an environment where they can ask questions and not be shamed for it. We need to teach them and guide them so they can grow up and create a safe and open environment with their spouses where both are happy and satisfied with the intimacy. I’m tired of hearing how many single women are scared of being intimate or that married women are feeling unsatisfied in their intimate life with their husband and we need to change and do better.