Another young woman's story

[asiaticdarkperson]

This is Zahra's story. I met her last summer when her aunt brought her to me with the hope that I could help. This story is much more grotesque and morbid than the tale of Parisa, but it is also completely true.

Zahra is 18 now. She lives with her father and mother in a small village a few miles away from Parisa's village. She's an only child.

Her father, Saeid, is an unemployed opium addict. He used to own a piece of land that he'd inherited from his father, but he sold it to pay for his addiction. A few years ago, he ran out of money. With no opium he soon started suffering terrible withdrawal symptoms. For a whole day he was ill and he endured while his wife and daughter patiently looked after him.

Finally, as it turned out, his wife either decided or was forced to sleep with a local opium dealer for $10 worth of opium. Apparently, they invited the dealer to their house where he gave Saeid some opium and then followed Maryam (Saeid's wife) to the bedroom. Saeid smoked his dose, while his wife was being fucked in the other room.

Apparently the same scenario was repeated the next time Saeid ran out of opium and soon it became habit. Saeid basically stopped worrying about work altogether, as his wife was now making enough to pay for his opium and also for food.

Zahra told me that her mother didn't really mind, because she loved her husband and her family, and she felt it was her duty to help out any way she could.

Zahra said that one evening, her dad was smoking opium with a couple of guys in their living room, as per his routine. It seems one of the guys offered Saeid one million tomans ($1000 USD) to have sex with his virgin daughter, who was 16 years old at the time.

Zahra is truly beautiful; there is an elegance and petiteness to her that is definitely missing in Parisa. Zahra is much more delicate, and her features are very pleasing to the eye. She doesn't have the playfulness that is Parisa's trademark. She's very serious, somber and somewhat morose. She's very graceful, introverted and reserved. She's a calm and quiet personality, and yet as attractive and feminine as can be. Her skin is peachy white, her eyes are light brown but I never saw her hair. And there's a very obvious touch of rural innocence about her that is also missing in Parisa.

So she says that that night her mom knocked on her bedroom door and explained that a man was going to come in shortly and that he was going to want to touch her. Apparently, her mom told her to just lie down and let the man do whatever he wanted. She assured her that it was OK and that nothing was going to happen to her. Her mom said all this with a very sad tone that made Zahra feel like her family really needed her to do this. So she consented.

She says that night was one of the most painful nights of her life. She says the pain was mostly physical, and that she really had no idea what the man was doing to her or how she was supposed to feel about it. She says she endured the pain because she remembered her mother's sad and desperate tone. After the man was done with her, he kissed her and told her that she was really beautiful, like an angel.

Her mother entered the room after the guy left. Zahra was bleeding. Her mom started sobbing and kept apologizing frantically and cursing herself and her husband out loud while she held her daughter. Zahra says she felt somehow listless and indifferent.

Zahra's mother started smoking opium soon after this. And she wasn't really "in demand" anymore after practically everyone in the area heard about her daughter whose virginity had been sold for $1,000.

Zahra says that she went to school during the day, and served customers in the evenings in her bedroom, on her bed. She says she hates her parents for what they did to her. Apparently one day she told her father that she had had enough, and that she was sick of paying for his opium, especially the way she was doing it now; she says she boldly stated that she refused to do it anymore. In response, her father kicked her out of the house. He told her that her room would be available if she decided to come back; but she would have to work for the privilege of living in his house.

She says she walked around for a while and then utterly dejected that she had no place to go, she went back home despondent. Her father was very pleased to see her.

Zahra says she dreams of escaping; even though she has no where to go. No one will marry her, and none of her relatives will take her in because of what she is. No one will rent a house to a single woman, much less to a prostitute. And she thinks if she goes to the police, she could at best get her parents thrown in jail, and herself end up a "teenage whore" (her exact words) all alone in the world. So, she feels she's trapped. She says all her dreams involve the basic theme of 'escaping.'

Her aunt was very concerned for her, because apparently she had attempted suicide a few days earlier. Zahra herself described her situation in much detail without the slightest hint of shame; she just wanted to die, she said.

Short of marrying her myself, there was absolutely nothing I could do for her and I told her so. I listened to her every word, which made me feel utterly depressed; and I told her she could come back any time she wanted if she needed to talk. I saw in her face; my offer was so very little consolation to her.

Zahra is a real sweetheart; she seems very kind, thoughtful and deep. But she's also very morbid, bitter and dark. She started to cry as she explained that she would gladly marry an old man, or even become the second wife of a man (legal here) and do chores and raise another woman's children all day, just to get away from her home; her bedroom and her bed she said make her feel sick and disgusted with herself.

At the end of our meeting, the aunt who was a mild-mannered middle-aged woman, asked Zahra to wait outside and then she practically begged me to take her niece away to the city and find a place for her to stay. She offered to pay me. When I flatly refused, she asked me if I at least knew anyone in the city who would help Zahra. I didn't know any one.

I told the aunt that Zahra could end up in worse shape in the city. And said goodbye. I imagined Zahra shooting up heroin on the streets of Tehran, sleeping wherever..

[asiaticdarkperson]

To be honest, my motive for telling you guys about Zahra, Parisa and Ahmad (from "a young man's story") was to hear your thoughts on what these people could/should do; what do you think they could do to regain their freedom so they'd stop feeling trapped? How would you describe their problem and its solution, in abstract terms?

Judging by your responses and your reactions, I guess you guys must have assumed that my tales were like stories with a moral. They really aren't.

These are the stories of real people that I know. And their problems are also very real. They are young people. And they are trapped, and there's no one to help them. Ahmad, for example, was eating 5 grams of opium per day last I saw him, last fall. 5 grams is an absurd, ungodly amount of opium. And Ahmad was trying anything just to decrease his use, because he'd already given up on the idea of quitting years ago.

Ahmad says it's impossible to quit opium. He's been using for 6 years. Ahmad isn't dumb and he isn't lazy; he has two beautiful children, a nice home and a loving wife. He earns enough to support his family and his family's needs are always taken care of; he works every day just so he can support his family, who he loves. Ahmad is a very capable, smart young man and yet he says he does not believe he will ever be able to quit opium. And because of this he is estranged from his wife, and his life is torment because of endless arguing and shouting matches with his wife over the stupidest things. His wife won't back down; and she refuses to even discuss the matter at all as it's so taboo. She feels ashamed that her husband is an addict and can't get over it. He can't stop using. They can't get divorced.

So, they are stuck together making eachothers lives miserable day after day.

What do you think Ahmad could do to improve his situation?

[asiaticdarkperson]

What complicates Zahra's situation even more is that she loves her family.

What this means is that she sees no distinction between her 'self' and her 'family.' Her love makes her see her family as a unit; facing the world as one. She is one with her family. This is very common in rural areas, but much less common in cities here.

I'd say this love is the same force that made her mother sell her body voluntarily; she felt her family needed her to do this and that's all there was to it.

Zahra basically identifies herself with her family; her sense of individual self is broadened to include the members of her family. She feels they are all herself.

Zahra's case is just absurd IMHO. I really don't see how she could ever get out of this of her own accord. She's like the guy trapped in a deep and wide well; unless she learns to fly there's basically no way she can get out of the well on her own.

[karlsie]

I feel very humble in commenting at all because my perspective is so different, although i do identify with Zahra's commitment to family. Alcoholism is tearing our rural villages apart, but the solutions generated by a Colonial attitude of separating the alcoholic from the family victims, is creating a greater rift. Not even the young girls who are the most typical victims can accept this. Their ties with family ideals are too strong, and i think this is the main reason for the high suicide rate among the village young.

I think that much of Zahra's and of Parisa's problems are social. They are seen as damaged goods instead of individuals with not only the right to make their own choices, but the right to be recognized for their merits, not for what should be their private lives.

In general, women are seen as a commodity, and i include Western views as well. There are very few places that do not place a stigma on prostitution, although prostitution crops up wherever there are the desperate and the willing. I think there are many who forget it takes two to tangle. If you're willing to engage the services of a prostitute, how can you possibly judge her profession as wrong or shameful?

While Western views continue to criminalize prostitution, it also continues to exploit it. Actresses whose only attribute is looking sexy, advertising that exploits feminine sexuality, even the promotion of "knowledgeable" women is based more on how she looks than how she sounds (i.e., Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, Condeleeza Rice). They are gestures to prove the Western world doesn't discriminate against women, but it does, just more subtly.

And while it's incriminating prostitution, it encourages "free" sex. Watch nearly any Western movie and the women give themselves away for momentary infatuations, multiple affairs, self promotion or simply because she's sexy and she likes it. However, it spends very little time on characterizing women who are looking for meaningful relationships. So, the basic message of the media is, "yes, sell your sex. Just don't formalize it with basic payment for prostitution".

I have no idea of what to do about women like Parisa or Zahra until social attitudes change. Women should not have a higher value placed on their virginity than the value paced on a man's own innocence. It seems to me that if a man should place such great value on a virgin, he should be held responsible for her continued well-being since he treasured so much being the first one to pop her cherry. I find it distasteful, personally, that a woman's sexual activity should either hinder or assist her in her choice of career, and i adamantly feel that women should be allowed the same career opportunities as any man, for so long as she is qualified to fill the job.

In this regard, i do feel qualified to speak. In most of the Arctic Rim countries, men wouldn't dare to discriminate sexually against women, because if they do, they'll find it very difficult to keep one. I'm very aware that this has to do with percentages. In most areas, women outnumber the men so they conform to certain male whimseys and expectations in order to compete. However, as a majority, they are selling themselves short by this lopsided compromise. The women need to unite as a supporting structure for each other. They need to promote each others skills and abilities without prejudice toward their personal sexual conduct. They need to make the men who apparently have no clue, understand their individual value. It can be done; by women who respect each other and are willing to take on the discomfort of social dissent and by men who are genuinely concerned for the fair treatment of women.