The Ethnocultural Connotations Of The Burkini Ban

In America There Are People Advocating For Trans Rights And People Like Vice President Pence, Who Is Vehemently Opposed. In Pakistan, Too, You Have All Kinds Of Folks - From Flamboyant Gay Fashion Designers And Female Air Force Pilots To The Taliban. A Cross-dressed Man Used To Be The Top Tv Talk Show Host. It Was Actually Quite Radical. So The Diversity Of These Societies Is Often Lost On People.

Contemporary Culture In Pakistan, Just Like In America, Is Continuously Hitting Us With Scary Stuff. And So We Are Utterly Anxious. I Think That It's Very Important To Resist That Anxiety, To Think Of Ways Of Resisting The Constant Inflow Of Negative Feelings, Not To Become Depoliticized As A Result But To Actually Work Actively To Bring Into Being An Optimistic Future.

The Ban On The Burkini, Which Is Basically A Wetsuit, Seems Particularly Ridiculous.

So Much Of Our Conversation About Love Is Possessive. "you Are Mine. And If You Stop Being Mine, I Will Hate You." And So Exploring Non-possessive Ideas Of Love And Friendship Is Important. Which Is Not To Say We Should Just Break Down Monogamy, I'm Not Taking A Simplistic Point Of View. But, In Addition To These Examples Of Possessive Love That We Already Have So Much Of, Let Us Also Explore What Examples Of Non-possessive Love And Affection Mean.

And I Ask Myself What It Is About Me That Makes This Wonderful, Beautiful Woman Return. Is It Because I'm Pathetic, Helpless In My Current State, Completely Dependent On Her? Or Is It My Sense Of Humour, My Willingness To Tease Her, To Joke My Way Into Painful, Secret Places? Do I Help Her Understand Herself? Do I Make Her Happy? Do I Do Something For Her That Her Husband And Son Can't Do? Has She Fallen In Love With Me? As The Days Pass And I Continue To Heal, My Body Knitting Itself Back Together, I Begin To Allow Myself To Think That She Has.