I Was Molested at the Age of Four, and This Is How It Impacted Me
When your parents are too busy struggling for their needs, and the children pay the price.
Trigger Warning: this article contains descriptions of sexual assault and abuse against minors that may not be suitable for all readers. Fearless community, please read with care.
“No uncle, what are you doing?” said I, when he rubbed his privates on mine. I was only four. I knew not what a penis or a vagina is, but I did know that a man wasn’t supposed to undress me or see me naked. This was Pakistan, and not even my father changed my diaper or bathed me.
This was not the first time that uncle Mohammad had tried to rub his body parts on me. It started with a gentle kiss on the cheek, which then moved to my lips. Then he started forcing his tongue between my lips and making them wet with saliva. When I moved back because of the pungent smell of saliva and the burning sensation of the spicy food he had eaten, he pulled me closer.
His eyes were red with anger and desire. “Zaria? Come and eat!”, shouted my mother. I quickly ran away. Each time he came home, my parents left my sister and me alone with him. He would always bring a delicacy for the family to share over the weekend and some chocolates for the kids. I would run away as soon as I saw him, but my tiny feet were too slow for his ferocious grip.
I was too little to confide to anyone what he was doing to me. My parents, especially my mothers, yes, I had two of them, should have noticed, but they did not. If anyone would have shown a little interest and questioned me, perhaps, I would have uttered a word. No one said anything, and I told no one.
Then one day, Mumtaz, my maidservant caught him doing wrong things with me. She ran toward him with a broom, trying to make a noise and warn my dadi — my father’s mother, about what the man was doing. She was hard of hearing and there was no one at home. When she tried to stop him, he grabbed her and pinched her at the breast, threatening her to never disturb or tell anyone anything. I don’t know why, she never did.
I kept letting him use my body. In a place where women are supposed to only make love to the one who they get married to, this man, who perhaps was in his early thirties at that time, misused my body, trying to insert his overgrown dick in my tiny hole.
It hurt, it burned like hell, it burned when I pissed. My mother saw my vulva staring red in her face. Oh, maybe it is an infection. They took me to the doctor. The doctor gave some medicines, but the pain and burning sensation healed with time. Once he went someplace and did not return for a long time.
I do not know how long it was, I had no track of time, but it sure felt like my life was normal. My life was, however, never normal. My mother never got along with my father who treated her like a doormat. She was busy satisfying her lust and depended on another for a shoulder to cry on. My father had two wives and spent his time switching houses and bodies between them.
I was raised by servants, part-timers, and full-timers who would come to the house to cook and clean. Mumtaz, the maid who had caught my uncle with me did not interfere. It seemed like she was his friend now.
Then one day, all my mother’s gold jewelry got stolen. There was a huge noise and a lot of checking. Mumtaz was a suspect. All her belongings were investigated, and nothing was found. The households of all the other servants were also checked. The night of the robbery, Mumtaz left the house and never returned. Thereafter we never saw uncle Muhammad’s face. I tried to erase what he had done to me like a nightmare, but he had caused permanent scars on my mind, body, and soul, the blemishes of which, still can be felt.
What happens when you associate physical touch with something evil
The only time a man touched me apart from my partner was to molest me. Naturally, a man’s touch became something I detested. My biological father never undertook any of my responsibilities. In the Pakistani culture, whenever we had gatherings, the men would lock themselves up with other men and talk dirty, eat and drink.
The women, along with their children will sit separately and strive to bond while the children whined. Most of them bitched about their husband’s and their mother-in-law’s snatching away much-needed time for the gossip with other sisters who were perhaps suffering the same fate.
In the middle of this gossip, if a perverted male uncle smuggled me to a separate room, it was never noticed. My first encounter with a male touch was when Muhammad touched me. Thereafter, these encounters happened unplanned while I was traveling by public transport or in crowded places. Sometimes the women I traveled with were abused as well. Women are taught to stay under the cover and quiet when they were oppressed.
Later on in life, when I was in college, I fell in love with the most handsome man on campus. This man was a flirt, but with me, he was a gentle man. All of a sudden, his parents approached my parents for our marriage, and hard to believe my luck, I became his.
The first time a man touched me romantically, with my consent, was after I got married, and this man happened to be my husband. Until this happened, I had forgotten the fact that touch was a way to signify love. When he touched me, all of the times uncle Mohommad molested me came back.
I wanted to give myself wholly to my lover, but neither could I tell him why I could not enjoy his touch, nor could I make him feel he was good for nothing. So, I faked it. Ishaan had always been a flirt and many women drooled to be in his arms. I considered myself lucky to be called his wife. Until I was not.
Sharing my household with another woman helped me come to terms with the truth
Ishaan married me because I was simple and he was certain I would say yes to any of his wishes. I was madly in love with him. I thought at least after the wedding, I could change his craving for other bodies. That was not possible.
I had to accept his new wife in my home. Every time they made love, I felt rejected. I blamed myself for not giving him real pleasure, but at the same time, I was saved.
Every time we made love, ghosts of my past came back to haunt me. Memories that I should have buried were revived. I never showed it, but perhaps my past experience affected our sex lives. Perhaps Ishaan did see through my pretence and longed for alternatives.
Saskia, Ishaan’s second wife, was a young, inexperienced woman who lifted me on a pedestal I was not used to. I became addicted to this new power I had got for the first time, and soon, the meek woman in me disappeared.
I wanted to make myself capable of the responsibilities life had thrown onto me. I was mother to my kids, a mentor to Ishaan’s second wife, and the key decision-maker in our polygamous household. I had never got so much power in Islamic steeped Pakistan.
In Islam, women are inferior to men. They must sacrifice everything for the sake of their children and husband. They have no choice but to accept their unreasonable wants as they have not got the assets or the confidence to raise a family alone.
I was meeker than other Pakistani women my age because my parents were more selfish than other average Muslim families. Most women in Pakistan are virgins before marriage and untouched. I too was, but forcibly my innocence was snatched away from me.
I may not be the first woman to have been physically abused, but surely not many girls were abused at my age. Even if they were, someone would have realized this and intervened. No one did until I opened up to my sisters while we were sharing episodes on how each was touched by a desperate man without consent. This made me okay with everything.
A handsome man like Ishaan stuck to me because he knew I would accept everything, even though it was out of the ordinary. I did until Saskia’s presence both threatened me and gave me the confidence to revolt.
I gained more power in all spheres of life, other than sex, an episode I did not want to face. That painful theme had become even more sensitive as I saw my husband enjoy sex with this tiny body. I now longed to face the music and make it pleasurable for both myself and my partner.
Cheating on my husband healed me of the damage child molestation caused me
I had no sexual desire because I was abused at a young age. When I was faced with the need to touch another man, I did it for his benefit more than mine. I kept pretending that I was healed of the past until the man I decided to stay mum for slapped me in the face by having sex with his second wife in the room next door.
Their moans of excitement made me realize what I was missing. I longed to have what they had together, and this longing sent me on a search. A search within myself to see if experimenting with another man would heal me of my wounds forced me to give in to my desires and accept another man as my partner.
My husband was unlike other Muslim men both positively and negatively. He had allowed me to follow my passion for dance if I let him flirt around with women even after having two kids with him. I further allowed him to live with his second wife, which was actually a good thing, as at least for now, he has remained faithful to the two of us.
When I was confronted with my husband sleeping with my mistress right beside me, I was forced to learn more about his lust for other partners. It was then I gave in to the desire to sexually explore another man interested in me.
Being a devout Muslim wife, this was blasphemy! Not only was this man not my husband, but he was also a Christian and not a follower of Allah. As we danced into each other’s arms, the brainwaves of my opened mind led us from the dance floor to a public loo where I had my first true orgasm.
I repeated this act many times, sometimes in the backseat of my car, sometimes in his, at other times in the empty room of that recreation theatre. My stomach did not squirm even once when I dared to make love to this stranger who had now become my new addiction even in the prayer room.
Suddenly, everything made sense. I empathized with Ishaan and understood his true need for experimentation with sex. For some reason, when my lover touched me, his touch was the ointment that I needed on those permanent scars that had seeped out all desires from within me. The real test would now be when Ishaan sleeps with me and the ghost of my past does not come back to haunt me.
When that day finally arrived, images of that uncle molesting me disappeared. They were replaced by the moans of pleasure I experienced with my lover Ron. My body gave in to the strong desire to open up to this man and have the best orgasm of my life. Slowly but steadily, the image of Ron faded away and that of Ishaan took over me. I loved how opening up my body to a man in anticipation of insurmountable pleasure felt.
The first time I had a real orgasm with my husband was after I had cheated on him, but this had done both of us good. To erase the hurt of being molested as a child and the hurt that I felt as my husband took another woman for me, I needed to experience true sexual desire with a man who would not judge me. When I did experience this, I learned many lessons:
Everything — good or bad, happens for a reason
Out of all the negative things that happened to me in life, the only thing that could have been avoided was being abused as a child who could not speak for herself. Had my husband not made love to another in front of my own eyes, sex would still remain as insipid as before.
In order to realize why Ishaan felt the need for another body or why I could feel no sexual desire with him, I needed to take a drastic step, which was blasphemous in my own eyes. As a meek, Muslim girl in Pakistan, cheating on your husband is unheard of, but this was the need of the hour and the only thing I needed to understand was the true meaning of sexual pleasure.
Uphold and live by the morals that set you free
One may think that an Islamic woman born and raised in a conservative society would stay more level to the ground. She may have no dreams and aspirations of her own and do what she has seen best in her part of the land — be submissive to her man. I have seen too many foreign men coming to our world to claim wives who would keep them as a top priority.
Religion taught me to sacrifice all for the needs of my husband and children. But time taught me that my own happiness was more important than anything else. Any religious teachings and morals that hindered my freedom had to be done away with. When I rewired my brain to unlearn what was considered evil in most eyes and dared to follow my heart, I learned to face the troubles of my own accord.
Every part of the world comes with its own set of problems which need to be tackled in their own unique ways
What I experienced as a child in Pakistan was unique. Saving my virginity for that one man in life, while secretly being exploited behind closed doors eliminated the very purpose of being ‘pure’. But in our part of the world, talk about molestation was considered profane and would rather be buried under the sheets.
I tried to bury my own troubles until my situation dared me to face them or die. In the western world, I would have been able to talk to a therapist to face my fears. Here, there were none, and those that were would not remain confidential. Talk about my disdain would spread like wildfire sniffing away any little joy I had inside.
So, I decided to rebel. I decided to defy everything I had been taught, for the sake of myself. When I saved myself, I saved my family. Child abuse survivors have suffered enough for no fault of their own. There is no need to prolong that suffering through societal pressures.
No longer do I check out of my own body while having sex and wait till my partner is done. When I let someone through the back door into my black hole I make sure he stays there until the darkness has turned to light.
