Let’s Talk ‘bout Sex Baby Doll
In January 2020, I left China to spend my winter holidays in Colombia. On the first day, I met an Italian-Colombian girl from Medellin (Pablo Escobar’s town), and we spent the next few weeks together. “I love seeing my country through your eyes,” she said, “I never realized before how beautiful my town was.” That was the last time I had sex; 275 days ago.
Due to the pandemic, I wanted to be close to China, so I spent the next few months in Thailand, and then flew to Karachi, Pakistan to apply for my Chinese visa, because at that time none of the Chinese Consulates in Thailand were issuing visas to Canadian citizens. I handed in my passport, and three days later, they shutdown. Since then, I’ve been stuck in a place where it’s impossible to meet girls. It feels like an open air prison; as if I was in a concentration camp ran by lunatic men, where they caged all the women, and stripped them naked of their human rights.
I have Tinder, I’ll be fine. I thought when I first arrived in Karachi. It was great, I got matched with a few girls, but soon after I realized that this place was pretty fucked up. Most of the girls didn’t have their real photos, they all wanted to talk first. Fine, I said, it’s not like I could go to a bar. Initially, it felt like a total waste of time, but then after a few months, the stars aligned, and I got matched with the one I wanted.
She moved to Karachi two years ago, to study medicine at the Aga Khan University (AKU). I knew it was a great school, but I didn’t know it was preferred over other American med schools. She was born in New York, and studied Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Yale. She challenged the status quo, she was my kinda girl.
Last month, we planned our first date. “You’ll have to get the nucleic acid test done before we meet,” she wrote on Tinder.
I called Uber, and went to the AKU. But when I returned, Tinder didn’t work. “Bro, it got banned,” my Uber driver said, “it’s against our morals,” he raised his eyebrows, and looked at me in the rare-view mirror. I don’t give a fuck about your morals, BRO. She and I planned to watch Churails together. I wanted to say. “Pakistan Zindabad” (Long Live Pakistan), he said.
It’s been a month, and now I wonder if we’ll ever meet. Except Tinder, we have no other way to be in touch. I guess, the stars are not aligned.
She told me about Churails, a new web series that received widespread critical acclaim. It has been hailed as a groundbreaking series that breaks stereotypes about Pakistanis and abandons oft-used tropes in Pakistani television. It has been lauded for its portrayal of three-dimensional women, as well as for exploring social dynamics in a diverse city like Karachi, portraying women across social classes and backgrounds.
She wanted to watch it with me, she said it would be a perfect segue to the dinner I had planned by the sea.
A few days ago, Churails got banned in Pakistan, and I thought about her.
It’s banned because women are telling their stories, because they are fighting for their rights, it’s about power and control. Period. She would’ve said.
And I would’ve agreed with her. This is not about morals or cultural values. This is about power, and this is about control. Churails got banned because the portrayal of women in this web series was not in line with the government policies. It got banned because women were telling their stories of rage, revenge, and justice. Same reason why they banned TikTok and other apps.
The funny thing is that last year, Pakistan's Human Rights Minister, Shirin Mazari said that Pakistan was ranked as the country with the largest numbers of child pornography viewers. They also top the porn-searching lists. I wonder why and how this is still accessible to all the fucking lunatics in this country.
I feel for those who live in Pakistan, especially the women. You can do anything you want behind closed doors, but please do not talk about it. What a bunch of nonsense. The more they oppress their people, the more fucked their nation will get.
There is only one cure. Let people tell their stories, and let them tell it in the way they want. It is their voice, it is their rights, it is their life. It’s time for a breath of fresh air, like Churails.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever meet her, because next month I’ll fly back to China. But you never know, maybe the stars will align again, someone will send her this blog, or she’ll discover VPN, and we’ll be reconnected. Until then, Pakistan Zindabad.
