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Episode: Finding Love Would Mean Letting Go of Who I Am

Author: Esther Perel Global Media
Duration: 00:55:51

Episode Shownotes

He's been searching for someone for so long that he questions if he's actually looking for a unicorn. He wants someone who holds the same religious values as he does. As is often the case with Esther, the conversation that unfolds breaks down what's really underneath his seemingly high demands.

This episode contains references to sexual abuse, please take care while listening. If you have an individual question you would like to talk through with Esther, please send a voice memo to [email protected]. If you would like to apply for a couples session with Esther, please click here: https://bit.ly/40fGHIU. Esther’s two new courses on desire are now available inside The Desire Bundle. Go to https://www.estherperel.com/course-bundles/the-desire-bundle to learn more about Bringing Desire Back and Playing with Desire. Want to learn more? Receive monthly insights, musings, and recommendations to improve your relational intelligence via email from Esther: https://www.estherperel.com/newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Summary

In this episode of 'Where Should We Begin?' with Esther Perel, a gay Muslim man navigates the complexities of love amid conflicting religious values and personal identity. He expresses frustration over finding a partner who shares his chastity beliefs while dealing with feelings of isolation and familial loyalty. Drawing parallels to Ariel from 'The Little Mermaid,' he reflects on the sacrifices required for love, struggling between authenticity and the expectations of faith and family. The conversation also touches on deep emotional wounds and issues of self-worth stemming from childhood trauma, revealing the weight of cultural and religious pressures in his quest for romance.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Finding Love Would Mean Letting Go of Who I Am) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_08
Many times I say, you should have a conversation about that. Have you spoken to this person about this? And what stands out is how difficult some conversations feel. There is such charge around them.

00:00:17 Speaker_08
There's a sense that they will derail, that they will unleash anger, that they will be filled with misunderstandings, with assumptions.

00:00:26 Speaker_08
And as we are going into the holiday season and we're going to be with a lot of close family members and friends and loved ones and people with whom we have agreements and disagreements about a lot of issues, this question about how we have difficult conversations, I want to explore it with you.

00:00:46 Speaker_08
I want to have a series of sessions, each one looking at a difficult conversation.

00:00:52 Speaker_08
And so I hope that on the podcast, we can have some of these conversations that we can't have at a dinner table, or that we've been wanting or imagining or fantasizing. So some of these conversations can almost serve to you as role play.

00:01:11 Speaker_08
Let's try it out in this imaginary sphere, in this virtual space called the Where Should We Begin podcast, and see where they take us, and then see if they can be transferred in real life.

00:01:35 Speaker_08
In this following session, we discuss sexual assault, and I want you to know this before you listen.

00:01:47 Speaker_11
Hello, Esther. I'd love to have a conversation with you about the intersectionality of culture, faith, community, sexuality, fantasy, and romanticization.

00:02:01 Speaker_11
My very existence feels as though I'm sitting on a fault line, and it feels like staying atop it means that there is the threat of it crumbling at any given moment.

00:02:15 Speaker_11
I'm a gay Muslim man with a deep-rooted connection to my culture, traditions, and Arab legacy. I value my religion, I practice my faith regularly, I feel spiritually connected to God, and I align my life to the values embedded in my faith.

00:02:34 Speaker_11
The gay element within religion is a tale as old as time, but my main point of contention isn't necessarily in accepting myself within the faith, but rather in finding a suitable partner for myself when I not only want a man of God, but I also want a court within the confines of a more modest and traditional approach, one that emphasizes chastity until marriage.

00:03:03 Speaker_11
The polar opposites of extreme secularism in the U.S., in the U.S. gay community specifically, and extreme homophobia within the Muslim American community, it's been exhausting to exist in.

00:03:18 Speaker_11
It feels like I'm caught in a hurricane on an uncharted island with no one but myself to weather that storm. I wonder sometimes what the point is to keep weathering if there's no visible population to even fight for.

00:03:33 Speaker_11
And romance seems like the only source of depression for me in my life. And it's sent me to dark places. And having ideas of my fantasy partner is really what keeps me going and praying for that final piece of the puzzle.

00:03:53 Speaker_11
I want to get out of my head and into reality where perhaps my partner does exist. And I'd love to have that conversation with you.

00:04:16 Speaker_08
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00:05:36 Speaker_08
So here we are to have this conversation.

00:05:39 Speaker_11
Here we are.

00:05:40 Speaker_08
Anything you want to add, change?

00:05:44 Speaker_11
No, I think those are pretty much the main pinpoints for me that I want to really understand and address.

00:05:51 Speaker_08
So put one forth as a starting point for today.

00:05:57 Speaker_11
Let's start with finding a romantic partner that has similar beliefs to me or that aligns.

00:06:05 Speaker_08
And that aligns in wanting chastity till marriage, has a profound belief in God, is Muslim? Correct, yes.

00:06:16 Speaker_11
Preferably, yes.

00:06:18 Speaker_08
And is open about it?

00:06:21 Speaker_11
Yes, absolutely.

00:06:23 Speaker_08
Are you out?

00:06:24 Speaker_11
Yes, I am out. I want somebody who is also out.

00:06:27 Speaker_08
To their family as well?

00:06:29 Speaker_11
Right. I am out to my friends and family. Not too many people in my religious community, and not to the elders, but my family knows, my friends know, and co-workers, anyone who knows me knows. Your imam? Well, my imam is actually my dad.

00:06:53 Speaker_11
So he's one of the imams in our local Muslim community. So it was a little challenging when I was trying to navigate that growing up. So yeah, we're the imam's children.

00:07:10 Speaker_08
Okay. Well, he's your dad, he's your imam, and he's your guide and teacher. What has he said? Because far from me to compete with the imam.

00:07:25 Speaker_11
You know, his response has been interesting. I would say overall, it's negative. So his main belief is that Being gay is not a sin, but having a gay life would be, meaning finding a partner in any way would be the sinful part.

00:07:48 Speaker_11
He made it clear that he didn't want anything to do with me if I ever came out publicly. It was the same with my mom. I wouldn't say they were violent about it. They did try to approach it with

00:08:04 Speaker_11
with some compassion and they were like, hey, you know, we want the best for you and the best would be to never say anything. So I would say overall negative, but I'm still really glad that I told them and they know.

00:08:23 Speaker_08
So your question, or your bind, as I just heard it, is not about how do I meet another man of faith, Muslim, chaste, et cetera, but that if I was to meet that man, I would lose my father. That's a different bind. Write what?

00:08:57 Speaker_11
It's not as, I guess, simple as I thought.

00:09:03 Speaker_07
No.

00:09:05 Speaker_11
I never felt like it was that specifically, but I'm seeing kind of how they connect now.

00:09:15 Speaker_08
You're feeling it?

00:09:17 Speaker_11
Yeah, when you said, when you finished your sentence, I felt a heaviness in my stomach.

00:09:23 Speaker_08
I saw that. even through the screen. And I even had a wicked thought that in a crazy way, you're blessed not to find your romantic partner upon whom you've put impossible demands.

00:09:43 Speaker_08
He needs to be out, but he needs to be chased, and he needs to be of deep faith, and, and, and, and. And it's set up in such a way that you want

00:09:56 Speaker_08
It's almost impossible to meet him, but it's a blessing that you don't meet him, because as long as you don't meet him, you don't lose your dad. And maybe your mom. This is maybe less a romantic struggle than a loyalty bind.

00:10:16 Speaker_08
And you don't want to lose your dad, who loves you deeply and whom you love deeply, but he can't for the life of himself begin to imagine that he has a gay son and living a gay life. So you are doing exactly what he said.

00:10:33 Speaker_08
I don't mind you being gay, but you can't live a gay lifestyle. That's what you're doing.

00:10:38 Speaker_11
Right.

00:10:41 Speaker_08
On the one hand, you're holding on to him, and on the other hand, you're feeling what on the inside?

00:10:49 Speaker_11
I'm feeling very lonely. I don't feel like I have any anchor. I don't feel like I truly belong anywhere. I'm just in isolation. That's really what it feels like.

00:11:03 Speaker_11
To be able to exist in all of these worlds is, on my own with no one around me, it's really sad. It's turbulent, but it's also sad, and I feel... And it's lifeless. Oh, absolutely. That's a great word for it. It does feel lifeless.

00:11:23 Speaker_08
And have you had that conversation ever with him? What does he suggest?

00:11:31 Speaker_11
No, I haven't. You know, we only had that one conversation when I initially told him, and that was when I was in college. That was, I want to say, seven, seven or so years ago.

00:11:45 Speaker_07
So that's seven years of lifelessness.

00:11:48 Speaker_08
Wow. Who is your person in the family or in the community with whom you can talk about this? Anyone?

00:12:05 Speaker_11
In my family, no.

00:12:08 Speaker_08
Do you know any others?

00:12:10 Speaker_11
I have, here and there. I do have one friend in another state.

00:12:15 Speaker_08
Gay Muslim?

00:12:16 Speaker_11
Yes, she is. And I do confide in her a lot. And I try to visit her often. But I don't have anyone that's close by in proximity or that I can rely on consistently. Yeah, I don't really.

00:12:33 Speaker_11
I kind of save everything, I bundle it up until I get to talk to her at some point.

00:12:41 Speaker_08
It's so isolating. My heart goes out to you. I mean, interestingly, I'm thinking about a film. It's called Trembling Before God. But interestingly, it's about Orthodox Jewish queer people. Different religion, but not that far. Same God. Same God.

00:13:07 Speaker_11
Sometimes same people too.

00:13:09 Speaker_08
And it's an incredible documentary, it's not recent. In a strange way, you will have an experience of community by listening to these multiple people of faith who are all struggling with the silence, the secret, the exclusion, the double life,

00:13:37 Speaker_08
The shame, the family, mournings, etc, etc. And they all tremble before God. They all know who they are, and they all know who they're supposed to be. And it's excruciating. But your dilemma is not about finding somebody.

00:13:59 Speaker_08
because in an interesting way your life is set up in a way where you're not meant to find that somebody because the price you would have to pay is unbearable. And I stand humble before you. It's okay.

00:14:30 Speaker_11
You know, when you said that, the irony about my favorite movie growing up was The Little Mermaid. And that's exactly what I thought of now.

00:14:41 Speaker_07
Tell me more.

00:14:46 Speaker_11
I mean, the price that Ariel had to pay for a life that she wanted was she completely gave up her whole species. I can't fathom doing that in my own life either.

00:15:08 Speaker_08
We have to take a brief break, so stay with us and let's see where this goes. Support for Where Should We Begin comes from Shopify. Some say we are living in an attention economy, or maybe we should say an attention deficit economy.

00:15:31 Speaker_08
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00:16:08 Speaker_08
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00:16:29 Speaker_00
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00:16:42 Speaker_00
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00:16:56 Speaker_00
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00:17:07 Speaker_02
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00:17:48 Speaker_08
We fuss over every single detail of the show. We sort through thousands of applicants each year to pick the stories that we share with you. And the conversations that I have with couples start off as

00:18:04 Speaker_08
three-hour sessions and then we thoughtfully edit them to one hour and then go back and listen to then add the notes and sometimes even a critique of the session.

00:18:17 Speaker_08
It's kind of what is in my head as I listen to the session that I didn't say in the session. We create original music and sound design to bring the sessions to life. Where Should We Begin?

00:18:32 Speaker_08
involves a whole team who have been there since the beginning with me to bring my office to you. It's about eight years that we are telling the stories of raw intimate encounter between people that you are invited to listen in like a fly on the wall.

00:18:51 Speaker_08
It's an expensive and quite time-consuming effort to create Where Should We Begin, and which we gladly undertake because you tell us time and again how valuable these conversations are to you, how they accompany you in critical moments of your life, how you see yourselves even in stories that have nothing to do with yours, and how it has helped you.

00:19:15 Speaker_08
And that is probably the most affirming thing people can come and tell me. So now we need to ask you for more, and for your help. And you can do your part not only by listening, but by joining my office hours subscription on Apple Podcasts.

00:19:32 Speaker_08
A subscription to Where Should We Begin gives you an ad-free version of these sessions,

00:19:37 Speaker_08
and all the Esther callings, and more importantly, a way to continue the conversations with me on all the topics that come up in these sessions, from sexlessness, to work conflicts, to infidelity, to secrets, to betrayals, all sorts of relational betrayals.

00:19:58 Speaker_08
to ending relationships. And we offer follow-ups with the couples because people always ask me, you know, do you see them again? Do you hear from them? Do you know where this session landed?

00:20:11 Speaker_08
So I go back to the couples and I ask them for a follow-up, which they share with us and which I then share with you. And just like our relationships, what you say isn't as important as what you do.

00:20:26 Speaker_08
So I've heard you say how much you enjoy the program, how much it adds to your understanding of your own relationships.

00:20:33 Speaker_08
But now it's time for me to do an offer and an ask, which means click on the subscribe button to the Where Should We Begin show page. I'd love to see you in Esther's office hours. Have you had any relationships?

00:20:56 Speaker_11
I have, I have.

00:20:58 Speaker_08
Men, women, them?

00:20:59 Speaker_11
Men. I've never been with a woman. I have had relationships with men. They tend to be much shorter. I would say the longest, probably four or five months. You know, I think a lot of why things end is our lifestyles don't align.

00:21:18 Speaker_11
Meaning you don't want to have sex. Right, that's the main issue that usually either somebody is on board at the beginning and then changes their mind or he thinks he can and then he can't. It's disappointing.

00:21:34 Speaker_11
I think because from the straight girlfriends that I have and that are Muslim, their experiences it's almost like they get rewarded socially and they find somebody who respects it or is also on the same path.

00:21:54 Speaker_11
And so maybe they wait for a while and then they meet a great guy and then it works out. Whereas on my end, that seems to be a speed bump where I don't even know if that wasn't an issue.

00:22:07 Speaker_11
I don't know how the relationship could have progressed, which is really disappointing.

00:22:14 Speaker_08
But you have created a hierarchy. It is worse to have sex with men than to be with men. And as long as I'm not sexual with them, it's not as what? As forbidden? I mean, explain to me how you've organized it inside of you.

00:22:30 Speaker_08
Because you have to shuffle many parts.

00:22:33 Speaker_11
Oh yes, we've been shuffling for years. So how I'm seeing it is, I do value the marriage part. I do want sex to be a spiritual experience that I'm only having with my husband. And I do want to be married.

00:22:48 Speaker_11
So for me, that's how I was raised, that's how I grew up. The expectation was I would do that for my future wife.

00:22:58 Speaker_11
So just because I happen to be attracted to men, I don't see, I would be disappointed in myself if I strayed from that spiritual contract I made with God. I promised God that I would do this.

00:23:14 Speaker_11
So just because I came out, why does that mean that I have to change that value?

00:23:24 Speaker_08
Who else do you trust to have such a conversation with within your community? I mean, you're not the first. You may be the first to your dad. But your dad may have spoken with members of his community that had the same dilemma. Right.

00:23:43 Speaker_08
Does he advise them?

00:23:44 Speaker_11
Oh, absolutely.

00:23:46 Speaker_08
And then what happens? What is his advice? Hold your kid with the feet to the fire? If they do stray from the path, you have to mourn them? You have to cut off from them? Or what? What do you know about how he has helped other members of his community?

00:24:06 Speaker_08
He's a wise man.

00:24:10 Speaker_11
The thing is, that would be an inappropriate topic to talk about at home. I know how he handled it with me.

00:24:15 Speaker_08
But you had one conversation seven years ago.

00:24:18 Speaker_11
I had one conversation seven years ago, but I've had several others with my mom who I'm sure she's kind of triangulated us, me, him, and her, because I am the oldest.

00:24:35 Speaker_08
On top of it.

00:24:36 Speaker_11
I am, yes. I am the oldest of four.

00:24:38 Speaker_08
I should have asked you.

00:24:40 Speaker_11
That's one more responsibility.

00:24:42 Speaker_08
I'm the oldest of four. Yes, I hear you.

00:24:45 Speaker_11
Yes. And, you know, it is a little bit more complicated because I think, you know, had circumstances been different for me and they didn't have sympathy, my story would be really different.

00:25:02 Speaker_08
Meaning?

00:25:03 Speaker_11
When I first came out to my mother and to my sister. She spent months and months trying to find counselors in our state to help me become straight.

00:25:18 Speaker_11
When that didn't work, after months and months, she talked to my dad and they started to look at programs overseas. And so the plan was to send me to... Conversion programs. conversion programs overseas.

00:25:33 Speaker_08
And you went each time?

00:25:36 Speaker_11
I went to the counseling sessions in the States, yes. I was still an undergrad when all of this was happening and I was still living at home actually. but I could not handle going.

00:25:48 Speaker_11
I was going and kind of, I knew at that point, nothing could be changed.

00:25:52 Speaker_11
And I was starting to accept myself, but I wanted to go along with what she was suggesting just to kind of show her like, Hey, you know, actually, you know, even if you try, this is not going to work. So I didn't want her to feel some resistance.

00:26:08 Speaker_09
Yes. Do you accept?

00:26:11 Speaker_11
I do. I do believe that I have a place in Islam. I do. Good. Which is, I think, part of why I do really value it. I hold it dear.

00:26:25 Speaker_07
Go back to your mom and dad a sec. You were telling me something.

00:26:30 Speaker_11
Oh, yes. I didn't want them to see that I was resisting them. One after the other, when she would find these counselors, when they didn't tell her what she wanted, she would fire them. She would sit in the session with me.

00:26:41 Speaker_11
And then that's when they decided we're gonna ship you off and you'll go to this conversion program in Saudi Arabia or to Syria, even though there was a civil war happening in Syria at the time. And that's when I completely, I couldn't handle that.

00:27:01 Speaker_11
And when they saw that I couldn't handle that, that's when they took a big pause and we stopped talking about it entirely.

00:27:13 Speaker_08
What would happen if they heard this podcast? Because you're talking to me, but you're talking to them.

00:27:19 Speaker_11
I am. I would honestly think they would be a little bit surprised. They would probably feel betrayed. I think they would want to distance themselves if they actually heard this.

00:27:33 Speaker_08
And you knew that before you spoke to me?

00:27:36 Speaker_11
Absolutely.

00:27:38 Speaker_08
Is there a statement in this?

00:27:44 Speaker_11
I guess part of me believes that they're still stuck, even after all of these years, they're still in that same spot where they think something might change.

00:27:55 Speaker_08
Meaning it's a matter of choice. Right. And you're trying to tell them, this is not a choice, this is who I am, how I'm born, but it is also God's will.

00:28:07 Speaker_11
Exactly.

00:28:08 Speaker_08
and I was put here, and maybe God's will is for you to actually be challenged with something that feels impossible to you.

00:28:18 Speaker_11
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.

00:28:23 Speaker_08
Because otherwise I will be caught in a struggle between if I hold on to me, I lose you, and if I hold on to you, I lose me.

00:28:42 Speaker_08
I either have my family, but I feel lifeless inside, or I allow myself to connect and to experience closeness and intimacy with a man, and I lose my roots, my family.

00:29:01 Speaker_08
And I carry the burden and the responsibility of having shamed you and dishonored you publicly.

00:29:10 Speaker_11
They would lose their validity in the religious community if they supported me publicly. A lot of it is social.

00:29:20 Speaker_08
It's a Faustian bargain. And when one is caught in such a bind, sometimes In an ironic way, the best thing is to be stuck. As long as you're stuck, you don't pay any price.

00:29:37 Speaker_08
It's kind of lopsided, but the goal is not to become unstuck, because to become unstuck is to instantly be thrown in an impossible loss.

00:29:53 Speaker_11
It would feel like an impossible loss, absolutely. You know, but at the same time, you asked me making a statement, but you know, this is just, this is my life and I've tried the pretending. It's, it's not healthy, my life. Right.

00:30:11 Speaker_08
But you come from a tradition. that does not really care too much about what is healthy in the Western sense of the word.

00:30:23 Speaker_10
Okay.

00:30:25 Speaker_08
So, you're mixing and matching a bunch of different value systems here. And he said it very clearly. I understand what you are, but that doesn't mean that that's how you need to live. So, how you need to live precedes what you are.

00:30:44 Speaker_08
You come from a tradition where preserving the relationships, the honor, the respectability, come ahead of your personal authenticity or being true to yourself.

00:30:57 Speaker_11
Yeah, they do, yeah.

00:30:58 Speaker_08
And it feels unbearable at times and untenable because it's like, how much will I choke on the inside in order to preserve my relationships?

00:31:12 Speaker_08
But if I become true to myself, or if I express my own authentic self, I will lose all my relationships connected to my family.

00:31:23 Speaker_08
Maybe not all your siblings, but certainly, but more importantly, I will make it impossible for my father to continue to be the teacher and the honorable member of his community that he is.

00:31:37 Speaker_08
Because he will have to bear the shame that he wasn't able to stop me. There is a way for you to think about not being so close. If you want to do this while living in their neighborhood, it's going to be very difficult.

00:31:54 Speaker_08
If you decide my duty, my role as the firstborn son, my role as the son of the imam, et cetera, et cetera, is what I will let myself be defined by, then you will make a choice that is about duty and obligation, and that's an honorable choice.

00:32:15 Speaker_08
And it comes with its consequences. If you want to play the more secular American narrative, then you will say, accepting that is accepting that I'm an aberration and that is impossible for me. So it's an I and thou battle.

00:32:38 Speaker_08
Am I vowing loyalty to the relationships and to where I'm from or am I vowing loyalty to myself? You live in a society that values identity and personal authenticity way more than your community and many other communities.

00:33:03 Speaker_08
But as a gay man, you are really on the fault line. You couldn't have chosen a better word. As a gay man who is devout and Muslim and a man of faith and a loyal son. And in every other ways, you probably have been a wonderful son. You're smiling.

00:33:24 Speaker_08
Or crying. Which is it?

00:33:28 Speaker_11
I'm smiling.

00:33:29 Speaker_08
Okay. Tell me more.

00:33:33 Speaker_11
It was nice to hear that from you, that you said you were probably a good son. Because I do feel like I've made a lot of sacrifices for my family. that are completely unseen but silently expected.

00:33:58 Speaker_08
I didn't just say this to say something nice. I know it. I mean, I know it from listening to you and watching you and seeing the excruciating inner turmoil which you are discussing. with a Jewish woman of all things. How transgressive can we be?

00:34:24 Speaker_11
That's part of the appeal. Might as well do it all.

00:34:42 Speaker_08
We are in the midst of our session. There is still so much to talk about. So stay with us. Support for Where Should We Begin comes from Huntress. Huntress is one of today's fastest growing cybersecurity companies.

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00:37:34 Speaker_07
Do you think they know the sacrifices?

00:37:38 Speaker_08
I know that you say they are silently accepted. But do you think they know? I'm a witness, but you're going to meet me once in your life and you carry this with you. But among your siblings, your mom, do you have grandparents? Uncles?

00:37:54 Speaker_11
I do have grandparents. Big family.

00:37:56 Speaker_08
There's a big Smala.

00:37:58 Speaker_11
Yes.

00:37:58 Speaker_08
So in the Smala, does anyone... Smala is extended family for those of us who... People see you as a very devoted son. Right.

00:38:10 Speaker_11
They do.

00:38:12 Speaker_08
And they wonder why you don't have a family yet.

00:38:16 Speaker_11
Yes. Why I'm not married, right? All of this.

00:38:21 Speaker_08
And they introduce you to one woman after another? At every wedding?

00:38:26 Speaker_11
Every function.

00:38:30 Speaker_08
Do you ever think, I mean in the many, many plots that you have entertained in your head, do you ever imagine being married with a woman and letting her know that you want to have a family with her, but that you also are a gay man?

00:38:49 Speaker_11
I have thought of that in the past, and I think that that can be done much easier than I even think, and people would be willing, as long as everyone is honest in the process. But Esther, I'm too much of a romantic. I do want the romantic love.

00:39:10 Speaker_11
To me, it would feel like I was... Lying all over the place. Yes, absolutely.

00:39:16 Speaker_08
Is it that? It's the lying or it's the compromising?

00:39:21 Speaker_11
It's compromising, but I would feel like I was soiling the love if I had to have 800 schemes for me to even be in the same room as him. That part would make me feel like it was wrong, even if I believed that it wasn't.

00:39:38 Speaker_08
You don't give yourself many options.

00:39:41 Speaker_11
No, I know, and as I said that, I was realizing that.

00:39:46 Speaker_08
You want it pure and absolute in an environment that may not allow for that. By definition, any kind of resolution will be a compromise. If you just go on saying I'm too much of a romantic and an absolutist and a purist,

00:40:10 Speaker_08
I worry that you are going to dry up to such a point that at some point you'll explode. And then when you explode you will pay a price that is way too big and not what you want either.

00:40:29 Speaker_08
So holding on to principles and to purism or purity or absolutism, it may be very true but it may not be wise.

00:40:44 Speaker_11
It's really difficult for me to accept that. I do follow logically.

00:40:51 Speaker_08
Yeah, I know. But you're going back and forth between fear and rage.

00:40:57 Speaker_11
Yes.

00:40:58 Speaker_08
Part of you is afraid and part of you is enraged that that's what you should have to do and feels that it is a profound injustice.

00:41:07 Speaker_10
Yes.

00:41:09 Speaker_08
How does it speak in your head, that voice?

00:41:14 Speaker_11
It makes me, well it's the voice, how it sounds, it's that I'm not religious enough. It tells me that this is my easy way out of not being religious and after all I'm not going to be able to upkeep those principles because I'm not religious enough.

00:41:36 Speaker_11
That's a really big, big issue for me. That feeling that I've tried to run away from is that I'm not religious enough. which my mom and dad have both said.

00:41:53 Speaker_08
And if I was, I would be able to suppress that whole part of me and follow the program. Right, right. May I ask you a question of ignorance? Yes. Are you meant to become an imam yourself?

00:42:07 Speaker_11
I'm not, no. That was the plan, but I didn't want to. I didn't have interest in it. So my brother is being trained to do that.

00:42:17 Speaker_08
If I was religious enough, I would, if I was as upstanding as I would like to be or think I should be, I would what?

00:42:30 Speaker_11
I would be able to uphold my religious values as a gay man the same way I would have if I was straight.

00:42:40 Speaker_08
And given that I am not, then what?

00:42:46 Speaker_11
Given that I'm not, I have to try harder.

00:42:50 Speaker_08
Okay. So if I try harder, I don't have to ask a question about how I meet my partner.

00:42:57 Speaker_11
What is that? Can you elaborate on that?

00:43:00 Speaker_08
Yes. If I try harder, it means that my being a queer man is not meant to be a part of my life in active form. Maybe in yearning, longing, fantasy, imagination, but not in active form, in reality.

00:43:29 Speaker_08
So, everything inside of me yearns to meet someone, and every other part inside of me is making sure that that doesn't happen, so that I can prove my devoutness.

00:43:47 Speaker_11
I do see that.

00:43:49 Speaker_08
Say it in your own words.

00:43:52 Speaker_11
I exist in an environment that makes it almost impossible to meet someone, but my imagination keeps that possibility alive.

00:44:05 Speaker_08
I have different departments inside of me. I have the imaginative department, but I also have the censorship bureau. My imagination keeps seeing me meet people because it's like a lifeline for me to know that there is hope and that love exists for me.

00:44:27 Speaker_08
But my censorship bureau makes sure that I don't ever really meet somebody so that I can maintain my devoutness and prove to myself and my family that I am worthy of being the firstborn Muslim son.

00:44:47 Speaker_11
I never thought of having a censorship department. I never actively saw that. That is such a poignant analogy.

00:44:59 Speaker_08
I mean, we can call it a censorship bureau, we can call it homophobia, but we can also call it a part of you that also protects you. from something that feels the worst thing that could happen.

00:45:14 Speaker_08
It's not just a restrictive bureau of censorship, it also has a protective element to it in its weird but very obvious way.

00:45:25 Speaker_11
It does serve a purpose.

00:45:27 Speaker_08
Yeah. A deep purpose.

00:45:30 Speaker_10
Yeah.

00:45:34 Speaker_08
What's something that we have not touched that you would say, oh, I wish I had not forgotten that or not left that out?

00:45:42 Speaker_11
There is one thing, as we were talking, especially about the not religious enough piece that was, I'm seeing how it's related now. And when you talked about, you know, that intensity at which I want to adhere to my values, the reason why

00:46:11 Speaker_11
My parents had a more positive reaction than a traditional immigrant Muslim family is because part of their reasoning for why I am gay is because of sexual assault that happened as a child. And so they know that that happened to me.

00:46:35 Speaker_11
and they attribute this to that trauma. There is some sympathy on their end because of that. And when we were talking about me wanting to really kind of prove the religiosity and adhere strictly, that did come up for me in my head.

00:47:01 Speaker_11
And how we kind of talked about having a pure love, I do feel like part of it is probably related.

00:47:10 Speaker_08
Can you tell me or you either tell me how or I tell you what I'm guessing?

00:47:22 Speaker_11
surviving that experience, I did feel like I was tainted somehow. I still sometimes feel that way. I don't feel like I was able to get justice from that.

00:47:40 Speaker_11
And I feel like if in my now in adulthood, if I am able to have a marriage or meet somebody and have a more traditional and gay sexual life until I'm married, it would feel like it would undo the wrong in a way, even though it's unrelated.

00:48:09 Speaker_08
Tell me if I hear you well. Both you and your parents bring compassion to yourself. through this experience. It gives it a framework. Do they know who it was and what it was?

00:48:30 Speaker_11
They do know who it was, yeah.

00:48:32 Speaker_08
If I find the love I imagine, if I experience the intimacy and the cherishing that I imagine, I will know that this person didn't take the best of me, that I'm lovable, worthy, and that I didn't just survive, but I revived. Am I hearing you?

00:49:04 Speaker_08
Yeah, go on. So maybe this is not about, am I religious enough? I mean, that may be a question you have too. But this is, am I whole enough? Am I not broken? In a way, my parents find compassion for me, but in my brokenness.

00:49:32 Speaker_08
And it's better than nothing, but it kind of confirms my brokenness.

00:49:39 Speaker_08
And so while that works for them, or for my relationship with them, when it comes to me, what I want to know is that I'm whole and I'm not broken and this is not the determining event of my life.

00:49:51 Speaker_08
And I'm saying this without knowing anything of what happened to you. Just tell me something, was it once or multiple?

00:49:58 Speaker_11
It was once. And when I say I made a lot of sacrifices for them, I was instructed not to say anything because it would ruin our reputation. And so no police reports were made, nothing. And then now, having grown up, I do kind of wish that we did.

00:50:22 Speaker_11
I made that sacrifice for them.

00:50:26 Speaker_08
They know?

00:50:28 Speaker_11
I don't think so. I never told them that.

00:50:33 Speaker_08
That's what you mean by the sacrifices that are expected but are not really made explicit. Yes. You carry so much. You carry secrets. You carry rape. You carry the unspoken. You carry shame. You carry love.

00:51:01 Speaker_08
You carry the loneliness of not being touched enough. You carry the burden of a firstborn son. You carry the burden or the responsibility of the son of the imam, of the holy man. And how could you desecrate that?

00:51:20 Speaker_08
You carry your unfulfilled longings and unmet wishes. I have deep respect for you.

00:51:29 Speaker_11
I appreciate that.

00:51:34 Speaker_08
And thank you for telling me.

00:51:38 Speaker_07
Thank you for listening.

00:51:41 Speaker_08
And also for telling me the last part, so that you didn't make a sacrifice.

00:51:48 Speaker_07
Finish the sentence.

00:51:54 Speaker_11
So that it wasn't my, I didn't make a sacrifice and it wasn't just my secret to hold.

00:52:06 Speaker_08
If we spoke longer, I would start to ask more questions. But I don't want to open up a can that I won't be able to close. So I think you let me in a little bit and that's fine.

00:52:24 Speaker_07
Thank you so much.

00:52:26 Speaker_11
Thank you for the call. I really appreciate it.

00:52:39 Speaker_08
The conversation you just heard is a one-time session. It's a 45-minute conversation, maybe an hour. But so much happens afterwards, and so I am always eager to hear the follow-up, the update. and to do a pulse check. What landed? What did people keep?

00:52:59 Speaker_08
What was useful? Where did it take them? What changed? It's a one session, so one has to be humble about what can be achieved, but sometimes a one session actually opens up a lot of new avenues and new stories.

00:53:15 Speaker_08
So I did receive a very beautiful update from him, and if you want to know, about this follow-up or any other sessions follow-up, you can hear it all on my office hours on my Apple subscriptions.

00:53:34 Speaker_03
This was an Astaire calling, a one-time intervention phone call recorded remotely from two points somewhere in the world.

00:53:41 Speaker_03
If you have a question you'd like to explore with Astaire that could be answered in a 40 or 50 minute phone call, send her a voice message and Astaire might just call you. Send your question to producer at estheraperelle.com.

00:53:55 Speaker_03
Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with New York Magazine and The Cut.

00:54:05 Speaker_03
Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Destry Sibley, Sabrina Farhi, Kristen Muller, and Julian Att.

00:54:12 Speaker_03
original music and additional production by Paul Schneider, and the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, and Jack Saul.

00:54:32 Speaker_04
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00:54:47 Speaker_05
Effects of Botox Cosmetic may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness may be a sign of a life-threatening condition.

00:54:58 Speaker_05
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00:55:08 Speaker_05
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00:55:12 Speaker_05
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00:55:22 Speaker_05
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