I was sat in my car talking to my friend about this and I immediately said to her I need to blog about this because this is such an important issue. I know so many people probably deal with these taboos and I thought I would use this opportunity to discuss them. We have so many taboos and so much stigma surrounding certain issues within the South Asian community.
Affection
I think this is a big one; affection love and care is something that is often very taboo within South Asian Families. I am sure some people haven’t ever seen their parents hug or kiss or even show any sort of affection to one another. I am sure this is partly due to our culture of having arranged marriage; therefore leaving no room for any sort of love or affection to grow. I must emphasise that this is again a purely culutre stereotypes. The prophet (s.a.w) himself showed a lot of affection and love to all his wives; he would keep a bracelet of his wife Khadijah once she had passed. The lack of affection/love that South Asian kids see then translates to a skewed and distorted perception of love. Many kids begin to suppress their urges or they begin to feel unloved because saying I love you to their parents is just the norm. This can cause serious damage to one’s mental health as like I said because if someone hasn’t seen love or experienced love from their home it can hard to translate into their wider relationships.
Sex
Another major cultural taboo within the South Asian community. Sex is seen as being very hush-hush and barely spoken about. This secrecy around it has really done damages to our community. When kids arent educated properly about sex and what is halal and haraam they run amock. I mean I will give you one example I didn’t know I had three holes down there until I was 16. That is worrying seriously worrying. We need to teach the youth about sex and normalise it because at the end of the day its natural and normal. We have created this facade around sex being wrong and haraam when it really isnt. I won’t blame the lack of proper sex education entirely on the family this partly due to the poor teaching of it within schools. However let’s change the perception once we start teaching the youth about sex, about whats halal/haraam then maybe we can change the perception around sex.
Periods
Something that really bugs and annoys me is the taboo surrounding periods. Girls having to hide their periods around the opposite gender; because men ‘shouldn’t know they bleed.’ It’s normal natural and it shouldn’t have to be hidden away. Women bleed and I am not saying we need to rub it in peoples faces. Just normalise saying I am not period and not having to lie or pretend. Normalise educating boys about period because their lack of knowledge surrounding it makes me want to cry sometimes.
Sexual Harassment
I guess under the umbrella term of sex comes the stigma associated with sexual harassment. There is a culture of respecting your elders, obeying your elders within the South Asian community. Hence why issues such as these are often brushed under the carpet because of a fear of dishonour or disrespecting elder relatives. Families are often relucent to call them out or confront them about their behaviour or to some extent not even believe it. This leads to the issue never been confronted or dealt and a lot of trauma for the individual evolved just because of the lack of open conversation about the issue.
