Against nature
Dear Fatima, I am 20-ish woman. I’ve been dealing with my abnormal sexual orientation my entire life. I thought that it was my nature.. As I grow up and learn about things I realized this might resulted from sexual abuses I had when I was a little kid. I learn about life, relationship, love in a very different perspective than many others. I am never attracted to men like I do with women.. I beat myself up for being so against the nature.. I am aware that what feel is so against the deen. But I can’t control what I feel. I fall in love. But I fall in love with women.. I need to mention here that I don’t wear boys stuff or speak like boys.. people almost cannot smell anything fishy or unusual about my sexual orientation. I dated boys once or twice. Not because I really into him but more like wanting to be like a normal kid. The truth is, that kind of love was never existed in any of my relationship with boys. But..whenever a girl friend get closest to me, weird feelings usually arise. I ignore this feeling all the time. But I get hurt, I bleed.. Its like I have betrayed the friendship by having those feelings. I have to fake that I love them just as a friend when indeed I feel more than that. I am afraid to get close to girls. Because I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t know how to explain. This feeling is not suppose to happen.. There was a point in my life I just gave up and avoided making friends, but it helped nothing. I can’t have best friend because usually I ended up feel something else. It is a torture. I torture myself more when I help them in their boys relationship issues. My heart breaks countless of time. When the feeling started to fade because I can’t bear the broken heart, I will find myself liking another girl. This is crazy. This cycle continues and gets bad over time. There are also many times I wish I were a boy..problem solved. The worst case was when my best friend confessed that she had feelings for me. We fell into the trap of the devil. We crossed the line. When we did, we stop talking to each other for few months because of the guilt we felt to each other. And when we thought we were okay and ‘neutral’, we became best friends again. Unfortunately it won’t be long until we crossed the line again. It kept happened for 7 years. Merry go round it went for 7 consecutive years. I tarnished the friendship. This friendship is a total messed up. I can’t forgive myself for that. Now I have cut my closeness to her. We are friends but we put a huge wall between us. It is so sad to be like this, but it has to stop.
The thing is yes I am over her.. but I still have feelings for girl. I am so tired to be like this. I don’t ask for this to happen in my life. I try to develop feelings to boys, I tried so hard but it seems so impossible. When I start to feel something to the same gender, I will try my best to shake it off and avoid the feelings to develop. But until when should I do this? I am so sick dealing with it. I am afraid of Allah’s wrath. I don’t want to do something that I would regret later. Can I hold myself from crossing the line again? What if there’s another girl I like confess to me again? I can say now that I will not do something stupid any more. 7 years taught me a lot not to fall into the darkness again.. but can I trust myself? I am afraid of what I am capable of. I am afraid of myself. Of my sins. Of my past.. another question I always ask myself is, how do I like boys? I never have feelings for them. I can like a guy but it is just on the surface, it can’t go deeper. Its like something stop it from happening. I honestly don’t think marriage can save me. Marriage can save many people, but I don’t think it is relevant in my case. Idk. I just never have feelings with men like I have with women.. I don’t know how to help myself anymore..
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Dear “Against Nature”It sounds like you feel trapped. Like you’re struggling with this notion that you are supposed to like boys and wanting to, but finding that you cannot force yourself to feel something you don’t feel. That sounds difficult and suffocating and frustrating. I understand that it appears to be a question of homosexual feelings vs. heterosexual feelings and stopping yourself from feeling what you feel for the sake of wanting to do what is right. But if you look deeper into it, you may find that there is a larger struggle there that may actually get more to the heart of what is important.When I read your post the first time I too was left feeling like you were stuck between a rock and a hard place. With this lingering question of what to do? How to get out of it? How to solve it? But when I read again and asked myself what is really going on here? What is the real need? I was struck with the notion that you are looking for connection and really wanting to be seen and to be loved. That is the real problem that needs to be solved. I think that for now, focusing on the homosexual vs. heterosexual piece in regards to Islam may be veiling you from getting to where you need to go to find some resolve, and ultimately to find direction.The fact of the matter is sexuality, regardless of which gender it is directed towards, is a common pitfall and a distraction from us focusing on our higher self and our higher purpose. Sure, it is a reality of life that eventually needs to be accepted and allowed for in a healthy way. But in order for that to happen, for both people with heterosexual feelings and homosexual feelings, we need to make a concerted effort to control and to a great extent resist our sexual desire and to focus our attention on a different kind of love and connection. Ultimately, underneath that sexual desire is a drive for love and connection. And we look to fulfill that with people. Part of that is because of the sexual desire and the cross section of sex and love. But really on a deeper level we look to people for love when we don’t have a proper understanding of Allah and a means of connecting with Him. If you develop an intimate relationship with Allah and understand that He is the source of Love and that He is the only one that can truly see you and give to you in the most fulfilling way, then you will be less needy of people to make you feel content. And then you can have healthy relationships with people that are balanced in the understanding of where the limitations are in those human relationships. We certainly need human relationships. But they are supposed to be reminders of our relationship with Allah, not replacements of that relationship.What I am trying to say is that as long as you look to people to fulfill a need for love and connection, you will always find that it is imbalanced and ultimately “unatural”, and therefore it will always be unfulfilling and problematic. So whether you’re with a girl or a boy, as long as you are looking for a human relationship for your source of love and connection you will have heartache, confusion, disappointment and pain. Even in the healthiest relationship those feelings are a part of the experience because of the nature of dunya. But if before you allow yourself to get involved in a relationship with a person, you first establish a strong and meaningful relationship with Allah, then you can pave the way toward eventually having a human relationship that is as natural and healthy as one can be in this dunya.The way you do this is to reorient yourself to a different paradigm of love. It takes some readjusting in your mind to move away from the romantic notions of love and sex that we see in the movies and literature and that we have embedded in our dreams and imaginations. But if you want real love, then you must be willing to take a relatively radical approach. And that is to reject the notion that there is a person out there who is going to fulfill you and make you whole. No person has that power. Allah has that power only. Yes, a healthy relationship that is built on a foundation of growth and spiritual attainment can be the powerful union that brings about a deeper experience of Wholeness and fulfillment. But it is only as a platform or venue for experiencing Allah’s love that that human loving relationship functions in such a way. And the only way to find such a human relationship is to first solidify your spiritual connection with Allah and to truly love Allah and know what His Love feels like. That is true connection, true fulfillment and the only scenario where you can truly feel seen and accepted and deeply loved like you deserve.Contemplation of Allah and ibada (worship/service) is how you get there. There are many ways outlined within the deen of Islam and the wisdom and teachings of the Prophet (saaws) regarding how to increase your closeness to Allah. But ultimately the major mechanism with which you can increase your closeness is by remembering Him often. Instead of allowing yourself to be distracted with notions of people and things and circumstances in the dunya, just bring yourself back to reflecting on Him. Even just wondering and contemplating on what it means for Allah to love you and for you to love Allah is itself remembrance of Him and will bring you closer to Him and to the love and connection that you are looking for. Once you’ve allowed yourself to accept the love of Allah into your heart more, you will find that you naturally just want what Allah wants for you, and it makes navigating the pitfalls of desire much easier. Only Allah knows the answer to the question of how to deal with the fact that you have intimate feelings for girls. So work on developing your relationship with Allah and He will make it easier for you. When your focus becomes more on Allah and the love for Him and less on what person you love, then I believe things will become more clear for you. People struggle with many things along the path of Allah. You are no less than any of us for having the struggles that you do. If you are striving to know Allah and to be Muslim, then you are blessed and you will eventually find peace insha’allah.with respect,Your Brother in Islam,
“Fatima Y”
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Assalamu ‘alaykum, You bring up a very complicated and difficult issue, and I want to take some time to address something that you bring up but didn’t spend much time on before I respond to your question.I am very sorry that you experienced sexual abuse. It is a terrible thing for anyone, and even harder for a child; it impacts people in lots of different ways. You mention – “I learn about life, relationship, and love in a very different perspective than many others.” That is something that therapists who specialize in working with survivors of childhood sexual abuse have also found. SOME of the things they found are: 1) Love becomes connected to pain. So sometimes that means that people avoid love. Other times it means that when survivors are in a relationship they expect that the other person will harm them to show that they love them.2) Survivors learn how to turn off their feelings. This is called “dissociation” but it’s a way that people learn how to protect themselves in situations where they can’t physically protect themselves. Sometimes it becomes such a habit that they can’t figure out how to turn their feelings back on and they talk about feeling numb all the time.3) Survivors often report feeling “dirty” or “poisonous” and are quick to say that the reason that bad things are happening are due to their own “badness”. Sometimes they say that they are afraid of the bad things inside of themselves.4) Survivors sometimes hurt themselves. Not all people who hurt themselves have experienced abuse, but people who have experienced abuse try (physically) hurting themselves as a way to punish themselves, as a way to feel something when they are numb, or because it distracts them from the pain inside. (Note: This strategy does not solve the underlying issue, and is very dangerous in lots of ways.)5) Survivors sometimes rush into sex. Lots of people rush into an intimate relationship, but for a survivor it can sometimes be as if they feel they have no choice in the matter and get pulled into that kind of relationship. In other cases, because of the way that their experiences have affected their relationships, survivors do things that they don’t feel are signals of intimacy but that other people interpret as signals of intimacy. All of these things change the way that a survivor sees the world and relationships (all types of relationships from friendships to romantic relationships), and it takes a lot of work to start living life differently after having spent so long living life in the ways described above. So finding a therapist that is specialized in trauma and/or sexual abuse is a really important part of supporting yourself on a healing journey. For survivors of childhood abuse, therapy takes time. Also, don’t be surprised if things feel worse at first before they start to feel better — you’ve been carrying a lot and therapy brings up stuff that you may not even realize you were carrying. So sometimes therapists spend some time with clients at the beginning teaching ways to manage any strong feelings that come up, or to not talk about the specific abuse directly, but more how it impacts your daily life. These are all ways to help manage the process so that you can work through it without getting overwhelmed. So now we come to your question. There are a high number of people who have experienced sexual abuse who as adults are gay or lesbian. Some people think it’s because people who have a same sex attraction are targeted more than other people. Sometimes someone’s sexual orientation and someone’s experiences of abuse are not connected. And in some cases, some people think that being gay or lesbian is because of the sexual abuse. (There’s not enough space to explain that connection here.) In your case we don’t know whether your same sex attraction is something connected to the abuse that happened to you, or something that is separate from that experience. Until you spend the time in therapy to figure things out, you are not really ready to have any sort of intimate relationship with someone (including marriage!). So, to care for yourself, it might be a good idea to remind yourself that you want a healthy, long-term, loving, respectful relationship with someone, and that you need to do some work before you can get there. In the mean time, it might mean you have to be very careful with how much you interact with the girls you find attractive, almost placing them in the same category of how you would traditionally interact with guys – so not hanging out with them alone, avoiding too much physical contact, maybe avoiding parties where the girls will come dressed up, and so on. Once you start figuring things out, if you find that your sexual orientation is separate from the abuse you experienced, then I would encourage you to read the articles posted in our links section so that you can get a sense of what the Islamic legal debates are about homosexuality. From my reading, my understanding is that the feelings themselves are not necessarily cause for Allah’s wrath or Allah’s punishment. All of us have feelings or parts of our personalities that we struggle with. The bigger issue is that we work hard in the struggle, learn from it, become a bit better each day, and work hard to avoid behaviors that are considered sins. I hope this helps.Sincerely,Your Sister in Islam,“Fatima Z”———————————————————————————————————————————————Note from Stones to Bridges Admin – You may find the following article and comment by “Fatima Y” on our website beneficial:
Anonymous
Asalaamu alaikum sister!
I cannot speak from experience, but I sympathize with you on both having been through abuse and having to struggle with your feelings. Homosexuality has been an issue I have tried to reflect in depth on for multiple reasons. I feel society’s reaction to it is so polarized in both directions. It’s a test and struggle that is so often dismissed and bashed within our Muslim communities; no one seems to be giving brothers and sisters going through these feelings practical advice. We’re all tested in different ways and our fault is that we judge and rank the tests that everyone goes through.
In all my reflections and research, one article that has stuck with me the most is the following: http://www.joshweed.com/2012/06/club-unicorn-in-which-i-come-out-of.html. It is written by a homosexual male who is happily married to a women (who co-wrote the article) with whom he has three children. He details his struggle, how he came to marry, and the deeper meanings he has taken in his life. Of course he is not Muslim, and I don’t agree with everything shared in the article, but he is a man of faith so there is room to relate. Take the good and leave the rest, inshaAllah.
And remember that Allah does not burden a soul with beyond what one can bare. You can learn to deal with this. You already have in so many ways. You just need to persevere and be patient even more, and learn more about yourself and how to deal with your feelings. Indeed Allah is with the patient, and what can be better than Allah being with you?
I hope this helps.
Anonymous
Dear “Against Nature”
It sounds like you feel trapped. Like you’re struggling with this notion that you are supposed to like boys and wanting to, but finding that you cannot force yourself to feel something you don’t feel. That sounds difficult and suffocating and frustrating. I understand that it appears to be a question of homosexual feelings vs. heterosexual feelings and stopping yourself from feeling what you feel for the sake of wanting to do what is right. But if you look deeper into it, you may find that there is a larger struggle there that may actually get more to the heart of what is important.
When I read your post the first time I too was left feeling like you were stuck between a rock and a hard place. With this lingering question of what to do? How to get out of it? How to solve it? But when I read again and asked myself what is really going on here? What is the real need? I was struck with the notion that you are looking for connection and really wanting to be seen and to be loved. That is the real problem that needs to be solved. I think that for now, focusing on the homosexual vs. heterosexual piece in regards to Islam may be veiling you from getting to where you need to go to find some resolve, and ultimately to find direction.
The fact of the matter is sexuality, regardless of which gender it is directed towards, is a common pitfall and a distraction from us focusing on our higher self and our higher purpose. Sure, it is a reality of life that eventually needs to be accepted and allowed for in a healthy way. But in order for that to happen, for both people with heterosexual feelings and homosexual feelings, we need to make a concerted effort to control and to a great extent resist our sexual desire and to focus our attention on a different kind of love and connection. Ultimately, underneath that sexual desire is a drive for love and connection. And we look to fulfill that with people. Part of that is because of the sexual desire and the cross section of sex and love. But really on a deeper level we look to people for love when we don’t have a proper understanding of Allah and a means of connecting with Him. If you develop an intimate relationship with Allah and understand that He is the source of Love and that He is the only one that can truly see you and give to you in the most fulfilling way, then you will be less needy of people to make you feel content. And then you can have healthy relationships with people that are balanced in the understanding of where the limitations are in those human relationships. We certainly need human relationships. But they are supposed to be reminders of our relationship with Allah, not replacements of that relationship.
What I am trying to say is that as long as you look to people to fulfill a need for love and connection, you will always find that it is imbalanced and ultimately “unatural”, and therefore it will always be unfulfilling and problematic. So whether you’re with a girl or a boy, as long as you are looking for a human relationship for your source of love and connection you will have heartache, confusion, disappointment and pain. Even in the healthiest relationship those feelings are a part of the experience because of the nature of dunya. But if before you allow yourself to get involved in a relationship with a person, you first establish a strong and meaningful relationship with Allah, then you can pave the way toward eventually having a human relationship that is as natural and healthy as one can be in this dunya.
The way you do this is to reorient yourself to a different paradigm of love. It takes some readjusting in your mind to move away from the romantic notions of love and sex that we see in the movies and literature and that we have embedded in our dreams and imaginations. But if you want real love, then you must be willing to take a relatively radical approach. And that is to reject the notion that there is a person out there who is going to fulfill you and make you whole. No person has that power. Allah has that power only. Yes, a healthy relationship that is built on a foundation of growth and spiritual attainment can be the powerful union that brings about a deeper experience of Wholeness and fulfillment. But it is only as a platform or venue for experiencing Allah’s love that that human loving relationship functions in such a way. And the only way to find such a human relationship is to first solidify your spiritual connection with Allah and to truly love Allah and know what His Love feels like. That is true connection, true fulfillment and the only scenario where you can truly feel seen and accepted and deeply loved like you deserve.
Contemplation of Allah and ibada (worship/service) is how you get there. There are many ways outlined within the deen of Islam and the wisdom and teachings of the Prophet (saaws) regarding how to increase your closeness to Allah. But ultimately the major mechanism with which you can increase your closeness is by remembering Him often. Instead of allowing yourself to be distracted with notions of people and things and circumstances in the dunya, just bring yourself back to reflecting on Him. Even just wondering and contemplating on what it means for Allah to love you and for you to love Allah is itself remembrance of Him and will bring you closer to Him and to the love and connection that you are looking for. Once you’ve allowed yourself to accept the love of Allah into your heart more, you will find that you naturally just want what Allah wants for you, and it makes navigating the pitfalls of desire much easier. Only Allah knows the answer to the question of how to deal with the fact that you have intimate feelings for girls. So work on developing your relationship with Allah and He will make it easier for you. When your focus becomes more on Allah and the love for Him and less on what person you love, then I believe things will become more clear for you. People struggle with many things along the path of Allah. You are no less than any of us for having the struggles that you do. If you are striving to know Allah and to be Muslim, then you are blessed and you will eventually find peace insha’allah.
with respect,
Your Brother in Islam,
“Fatima Y”
Anonymous
I completely agree with you. There is indeed a larger struggle and that is my journey to Allah.. I love Allah and I know He will never leave me. I am working on my relationship with Allah too.. I accept this as a test from Him. I try to do more to please Him and avoid things that can destroy me. I believe I am here because Allah wants me to learn something from here. He granted my prayer when I learn about this website..
Maybe I am just trying to blend in the community. I guess I just want to be like other people.. I always find myself wander, what am I suppose to learn from all this.. I have so many unresolved issues. Maybe I am missing the point that is why it keep chasing me..
I’m not looking for human connection, affections or romantic relationship, whether it is a right or wrong relationship. I have moved on from that issue. My real issue is I can’t be like other woman. I can’t grant what my parents wish for me. I can’t love a man who ask me to marry him. A pious and good character man. I can’t convince my heart to do all that..I have rejected few good men who asked me to marry him. How abnormal is that. No one seems to understand why I did that. I let them think that I am fussy and choosy. I can’t like girls either, I don’t believe it is a right thing to feel. I am in a constant war with my inner self.
I can’t be a normal girl. All of that is because I am a homosexual. I wish I could just go with the flow and do what people ask me to do..
Thank you brother for reminding me of my relationship with Allah..
Anonymous
I am really confuse…
Should I accept that being a lesbian is part of my identity and go on with my life?
Or should I keep fighting my feelings like I have done for so many years?
I am fighting myself since I can remember..
I can’t even mention myself that I am a lesbian. I don’t want to be a lesbian. But I am. I am one.
I am not hateful towards LGBT but I’m really stuck in my condition.
My friends said that I should marry someone and everything will ‘miraculously’ be ok.
The power of marriage, so they said. I strongly don’t believe in that.
My family start to push me into marriage yet I always find my excuses.
There are times when I thought, fine I’ll do whatever mom and dad want me to do -marrying someone. Like I don’t have a choice but to go with the flow.
This seems so wrong in a long run. I can pretend, but I can’t pretend forever.
As much as I want to make my parents happy, I don’t want to torture myself more that I already have.
I maybe can brush off my feelings for women whenever it comes, it is what I always do..
But to develop feelings with men is another story.
Can’t I just, stop fighting..
and stop trying to develop feelings that I never had..
I am so tired to fight, to force and to go against something I call ‘my nature’.
Thanks fatimas for your comments..
Even sexual abuses don’t feel this heavy.. Sexual abuse is what people did to me, but this.. is what I do wrong to myself..
Anonymous
I can’t say if you were lesbian at birth or if your current orientation is due to your sexual abuse.
Your inner reality is yours.
It sounds like you don’t want to get married because you would like to figure things out for yourself.
I would support you following that instinct and would encourage you to discuss your situation with a counselor who can get work through your feelings with you step by step.
I say this because I agree with your other instinct that trying to get married without working on how your past abuse affected you might make you re-experience your past and cause more pain.
Regardless of whether you were lesbian at birth or if it’s due to your sexual abuse, you have to decide what to do with the feelings you have.
As far as I know, feelings themselves are not punishable – I can get angry, but getting angry is not something that is punished. So if I choose to hurt another person, that’s wrong, and that can be punished by law. So I would suggest you go to someone who is a scholar in Qur’an, Sunnah, and fiqh (Islamic law), and is someone who you trust to figure out the Islamic rulings on your attraction to women and on same-sex relationships. Until then, I would suggest that you consider limiting your contact with girls you find attractive and spend time with the counselor working through how you approach relationships in general (friends, family, romantic ones).
Sincerely,
“Fatima Z”
Anonymous
Assalamualaikum sister..
I think I don’t really care any more if I am a lesbian at birth or my experience is what makes me like this. I do limit my contact with girls, it has been going on for quite sometimes. It is really hard at first, but I get used to it already..I’m not into anyone right now. It has been a while. I am thankful for that… But that doesn’t mean that I have become heterosexual.. I’m just avoiding..I’m getting better at distracting myself from this nonsense..
Maybe what I was trying to say from my very long post was, I don’t want to get married. I don’t want to like girls and I don’t want to like boys either but it feels so wrong to say it bluntly.
It is not any more a big problem abstaining myself from girls. Sometimes I can switch off my feelings just like that. I just close my eyes and next thing I know I feel nothing.
I know I’m very confusing from my post and my replies.. I’m so sorry for that.. I don’t know what I want to convey here..
Sometimes I wander why am I still sane after all the things that happened.
I’m rambling. I’m so sorry..
Thank you sister.. I don’t know you but you and the others help me so much. Thank you for saying you support me. I really need that. It is such a wonder how certain words have deep impact in one’s life. I wish I knew wonderful people like you in real life.
JAK..