A holy fuck

by night, i might be a blogger, but by day i slog through the hours at a shia channel in the UK, where i produce two shows covering politics.

i had tweeted a while back about callers who would shout "youse all are kuffar" before hanging up, but recently something new has started happening.

one of my shows has the blessedly generic name 'behind the headlines' where i round up a week's worth of stories relating to islam and muslims and then three hosts discuss them while taking calls.

last week, we did a show discussing the comments of Jack Straw, a former Labour cabinet minister, that Pakistani men "are preying on white women." the hosts then asked the audience if the statement was a valid one. they also made mention of the fact that Straw's own brother had been put on the sexual offenders list.

now the response was beyond anything our show had seen. pakistani callers of both genders nearly melted the phone lines as they chimed in with their vitriolic responses. but they weren't only concerned with Straw's comments, they were mega pissed that the channel had even brought up the question. in fact, days after the show we were still receiving emails literally bursting at the seams with venom over how our show sought to repeatedly bring up anti-pakistan stories.

now this was something i have long held disdain for. back in pakistan journalists would forever get pillored for promoting a 'negative' image of the country. in a month where pakistan remained in the news for blasphemy rows ranging over issues such as water glasses, business cards and posters, culminating in a brutal murder which was roundly appreciated by all and sundry, it's really not my fucking fault if pakistan is 'looking' bad.

and as my forays into both news and non-news media have blatantly illustrated, everyone loves the controversial, shocking, 'negative' stories far more over any uplifting, positive ones. moreover, i am sick to death of this refrain because if these problems do exist, the worst thing possible would be to start pushing them under the rug.

take the Jack Straw story again. he made his comments a week or so after pakistani gangs who ran prostitution rings got busted. now the stories in all the papers were about how they were using white women. no one bothered mentioning that there were a lot of asian women involved as well. why?

because for people like Jack Straw, the question is one of an event reconfirming a bias brought about their own anxieties. the bias being that pakis are up to no good. the anxiety being that these good-for-nothing pakis are ruining our beloved Blighty.

its not like Straw is alone on this.

for starters, without resorting to anything more than anecdotal evidence and personal experience, there is a impulse, nay a raging desire, amongst pakistani men to fuck white women. its not that they are the most obvious cultural marker of beauty of our globalised society, although its that also, but because of something simpler.

men like to play out their politics on women's bodies.

for the colonised brown man, the pain of being politically subjugated seeks relief through the physical conquering of the coloniser's woman. for the downtrodden minority, doing someone from the majority is meant to alleviate all other miseries.

of course, in actuality this far too often leads to self-hate and eventual acting out etc.

but that never subverts the desire to play out your ideology via a vagina.

take the partition for example. for so long, i have tried to rationalise or attempt to understand why the announcement of a homeland being broken led to a mass explosion of unrestrained sexual violence. i mean we all know about looting, plundering and raping hanging out in the same crowd. but widespread lopping of breasts and collecting them in sacks? forced circumcisions by the dozens? rape at such magnitudes that the governments for both the new nations actually had to develop policies of how to deal with rape-concieved-children-of-the-wrong-faith?

the only answer that makes sense is that the helplessness felt at being uprooted and having your home torn apart was alleviated by forcibly imposing a grotesque level of control through rape.

and its not like this, as we so often like to delude ourselves, was a one-off.

even now, our allums (you know, the big-ass flags you carry in war) are adorned with women. when the woman is aasia, her feminity and humanity are torn off and she is presented simply as evil incarnate. when it comes to aafia, her feminity is ramped up through the selective lens of mehramness, and she ascends as the daughter of the nation. no one has any clue about who they were as people, or even as women, yet deranged fanatics continue to projects their beliefs amidst their breasts.

because when women can be objectified, as a hole to put your dick into, an image to spill your semen on, a symbol for your desire to crawl back up the uterus, a standard bearer for all your morality and anxieties, it allows you to cloak yourself from the actual responsibility of dealing with them.

what do i mean by "dealing with them?"

well, i mean realising they are human.

now, i know you know that. but let's take this conversation down to a basic level. let's take it down to sex.

because you can say whatever the fuck you feel like, and your brain can make as many logical and rational and intellectual arguments as it wants, but your body and its urges always act in what you truly feel. and so its one thing to say platitudes about women, quite another to make love to her in a way which is equitable and enjoyable.

its an idea i have thought about often, even making a short film about this.

and i returned to it in quite a staggering manner. a person i interviewed told me about how in iran, the middle class families would snap up the books by the Imams on jurisprudence and the hijab, but no one would buy the books on sexual advice. and by that, i don't mean stuff about chastity and what not. i mean details on how to find the g-spot, on techniques of love making.

holy fuck, emphasis on holy.

and if you think that this is just khatmal mythology typical of this kuffar sect, check out what the Prophet had to say on this matter.

The Prophet said, "Three people are cruel: . ..a person who has sex with his wife before foreplay.'' (Wasa'il, vol. 14, p. 40) Another hadith equates sex without foreplay to animal behavior: "When anyone of you has sex with his wife, then he should not go to them like birds; instead he should be slow and delaying." (Wasa'il, vol. 14, p. 82) The Prophet said, "No one among you should have sex with his wife like animals; rather there should be a messenger between them." When asked about the messenger, he said, "It means kissing and talking." (Tahzibu'l-Ihya, vol. 3, p. 110)

as i was saying, holy fuck.

because it got me thinking, do all these doyens of religion, and those champions of equality and rationality, ever allow these thoughts into their bedroom? do they ignore the imperatives of their raging hard ons to try and get their wimmin hot and spicy? do all those millions who massed for upholding the Prophet's sanctity and protecting the daughter of the nation, do they try and see if their tongues and their thumbs can locate clitorises (or is it clitori?) does maulana fazlur rehman consider that reverse cow-girl might not be as fun for him, but it could be more fun for his zoja? or do our chest-thumping, equality now bloggeratis pause their impending premature ejaculations in an attempt to at least try and ensure that the match doesn't end with the female orgasm stranded on a golden duck?

cause eventually, all this talk of politics and rights and ideals are smokescreens obfuscating your own agendas, insecurities and beliefs. stop the talking, let your actions (and i mean this in the most colloquial sense of the word) prove your worth.

3 Days in Karachi

if there's one thing i truly hate about abbas, it's his bhenchod paan. every time he has it in his mouth, which is all the time, he's constantly letting out these poisonous pichkaars. 


when he does that, it produces this repulsive little sound, like a sharp hiss or a brief puckering sound, which rises during that brief moment when his lips tremble apart slightly, and a sharp sting of spittle pierces through the crevices within his teeth. 


to be sure, if there is one thing i hate about that choot, its his paan.


now, this is no fanciful statement. abbas is a truly despicable human being, so there is a lot to hate about him. 


to begin with, he is ek dam kala bhujjang - black as sin. i mean kala. but i don't mind that. 


his heart is much darker than his complexion. he was the child who would use elfy on the cats and shut their eyes. he was the boy who would slap his sisters for fun. he was the son you kept your valuables hidden from. 


and on top of that, there was his bhenchod bharham. i mean obnoxious level bharhams. constant bataein chodna. constant bravado. he was a spindly little lund, but he talked as if he owned the bhenchod city.


and as he kept talking and slurping his oral cesspool, he kept pissing out those pichkaars. 


II


there are two boys, and they are standing under a tree. there is a thin dark one who keeps pacing and spitting pan, and waving his assault weapon in the air. the more muscular one remains silent most of the time. i cannot be sure if he is saying anything at all, because i'm too far, and the thin one doesn't look like he's stopping.


abid thinks that we should move. i know we can't get a good shot of them from here, but if anyone were to come by that road, we'd have a kutta shot of the whole scene. i tell abid to be patient.


the thin one has not put his gun against the pavement, and is using his free hands to make crude gestures. he accompanies these mathira grabs with thrusting his pelvis. soon, a simple narrative emerges from this dance. 


the thin one seems to be saying that someone with large breasts encourages him to adopt a slow, languid pace during intercourse, so that he concentrates on kneading. but a lover with smaller breasts compels him to pinch and squeeze with wild abandon, a luxury which necessitates that he perform the act with a furious vigour. 


abid tells me he didn't have time to re-charge the spare battery. 

III


Asim thinks he's some bhenchod poet, some udaas aashiq who's going to take this randi world and hide all her oozing warts and fix her up so that he can marry her and take her to his gandoo village.


Saala lund.


he thinks like he's the guy who's on some mission to rid us of our sins, like he is some bhenchod avenger, like he's that gandu baazigar. 


and oh how he loves to give me this chutia smug look. how he loves to takes these deep, meaningful breaths which he uses to cover up the fact that he's got lund to say. and then there's his taliban routine every juma, where he makes this big show of going to offer the only namaaz he does all week. but oh no - somehow that makes him some bhenchod philosopher.


fact is asim is just as much as a gandoo as the rest of us,  but he's decided that he's going to ignore that. he's going to ignore the fact that he's a third class ghunda with mobile snatching as his primary vocation. he's going to ignore the fact that he is just as khwaar as all the rest of the qaum. because he is asim bhenchod ashiq. asim bhenchod hero, asim bhenchod leader.


Saala lund.

IV


The two boys now descend
Into a fight that never ends
Between them.


They speak of women they'll never see
Of how they would seduce them in their sleep
One Day.


One speaks of the goddess Katrina
Another extols the virtues of Kareena
Ad Nauseam.


Screaming, straining, pulsing
Throbbing, lashing, excreting
Screaming, screaming, screaming.

V


EXT. EMPTY ROAD, DAY


          [We track across a wide, empty road in Garden, stopping bang
          in the middle of the road. there is a slight haze, and its
          cloudy and cool. The two boys are on the extreme right of
          the frame, under a tree. we hear them talk, but not
          audibly.]


                                                          CUT TO:
          CLOSE UP of ABBAS:


          [Abbas suddenly whips his head around. We can hear the faint
          sound of a rickshaw in the background.]


                                                          CUT TO:


          CLOSE UP of ASIM:


          [Asim follows suit, and instinctively, grips and squeezes
          the gargantuan gun he holds.]


                                                          CUT TO:


          [We return to the original shot. The boys are now getting
          animated, and we see a rickshaw chugging slowly towards them
          in the vast empty road.]


                              ABBAS:
                    Chal bhenchod! Aaja beta asim teri
                    baari aa gayee hai! Chal gushtee
                    kay shurroo ho ja (lets out a
                    stream of paan spittle)


                              ASIM:
                    Lun Pay aa...


                              ABBAS:
                         (screaming)
                    Kya ho gaya hai lun ke siray? Chala
                    goli madarchod yeh wali Katrina kay
                    liyain! (breaks out into maniacal
                    laughter)


                                                          CUT TO:


          [We now split the screen, with close ups of both boys. We
          see Abbas screaming as a rush of emotions wash across Asim's
          face. The background music, and general sense of chaos
          continues to rise, until...]


                                                          CUT TO:


          [We see Asim face on, screaming loudly. He opens fire, and
          holds the gun with both arms between his legs. We see
          bullets pulsing out of the weapon, with Asim's body
          convulsing with each release of a bullet, each burst of fire
          coalescing as an other-wordly experience on his face. His
          mouth hangs open, his pupils dilated, his entire being
          sublimated into the gun he holds between his legs, the gun
          which continues to spit out bullets...]


                                                          CUT TO:


INT. RICKSHAW, DAY


          [The camera is now within the rickshaw, which is a
          smouldering, burning, bleeding carcass. We see both boys in
          the background, with Abbas gesticulating wildly, while Asim
          stands there, spent, in a daze.]

VI


Holy shit!


I turn to Abid and ask him if he got it, and he has. And although we both know its not going to run on-air, the confirmation has me elated. i was already nursing a semi having witnessed that first hand, but this is too good.


The boys continue to stand there. The psycho who completely ravaged the rickshaw continues to stand still, while the other prances about the rickshaw. I keep wondering whether I should move or go in, but Abid keeps me in check. I want to send a message to the assignments desk, but I have no idea whether to call this one ethnic or not. 


I realise that they might have the same problem too. The rickshaw driver is fair, ruddy type, but his passenger, an old woman, looks much darker. The dark boy continues to run around their smoldering bodies.  


Suddenly, the killer speaks. He seems to have made up his mind and barks instructions to the other. They grab the woman, and carry her corpse to the nearby gully. The fair one then returns alone, and stands by the rickshaw which he now begins to douse in petrol.

VII


More die as violence and arson continue in Karachi


KARACHI (Staff Report): The death toll in the city rose to 85 this morning, as raging gun battles continued through out the city, with the authorities continuing to be missing from the action...


... In Garden, at least two bodies were recovered early on Saturday morning. Aasia Ahmed, a 55 year old local resident, was found dead in an alley near her home, having been shot multiple times in the head and torso. Aasia's son was an activist in the MQM, and police confirmed that her death was a target killing.


Police also recovered the body of Asfandyar Khan, a 42 year old rickshaw driver from the same vicinity. His remains were found within his rickshaw, which had been set on fire. The authorities confirmed that they were treating his death as a target killing, pointing out that several bus drivers and rickshaw drivers had been similarly burnt alive due to their ethnic origins. 

Pakistani Sex Scene

nothing works better on the internet than a title with sex in it. i have experimented several times with this idea of using popular words in blog posts, and they always work like a charm.

this time though, it's not exactly a gimmick. this short film explicitly attempts to talk about sex on the pakistani screen. but the conversation itself is a strange one. so before anything else, have a look at the video itself.


Pakistani Sex Scene from karachikhatmal on Vimeo.
This is the third film of my Masters degree. this time around the rules were that the entire film had to be shot in one, continuous take - with no edits or cuts in between.

here is a link to my reflections on the film

http://sastimasti.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/pakistani-sex-scene/

thus, everyone is familiar with the ubiquitous cinematic convention of the hero and heroine in a tight embrace, their lips edging towards one another, their breathing hot and heavy - and just when the hero lunges forward, the heroine turns away her face.

foiled again!

but in an increasingly sexualized world, those cultural conventions are being stretched in our part of the world for some time now and the logic of suggesting without showing has been radically transformed. one example being the song referenced in the film - Pyar Di Ganderi. i mean, come on!

this song wraps itself around the pillars of showing & suggesting, and pole dances on them. and the visual interpretation of this Naseebo Lal song by Khusbo really leaves you wondering if there is anything left to suggest.



but if we start to blame the song here, then we are really missing the point. its not about the song, or the dancer - it's about the society. too often art is blamed for creating immorality within society. what people fail to appreciate that art's purpose is to act as a mirror, as well as a guide. when we see ourselves in the mirror held up by art, we are able to break and change what we are. and then, we are able to form new thoughts and ideas, guided by the spirit of art.

whew... that got a bit heavy there.

my point was that the song and these attitudes of suggestiveness reflect our own society. the crucial thing here is the relationship between shame and lust -  each seems to inform the other. this is because we get ashamed of something when our morals condemn it, but our desires don't. but if we keep reacting to shame by suppressing our desires, our lust continues to grow. and so we try and keep that in check through shame... and the cycle continues.

this was where my original idea finally arrived at. i wanted to show the irony of how an average pakistani male can be so sexualized and yet feel ashamed of that sexual lust. thus one of the earliest drafts of a script had envisioned the scene where the man would rush into the shower straight after the act.

i was unsure of where else to go from there though. i wanted to say something about the woman, but couldn't find any thing suitably authentic without being melodramatic. so i turned to the woman in my life - my wife. she was the one who came up with the aftermath of that scene, specifically because she realised that the casualty from this conflict between shame and lust is intimacy.

it made a lovely resonance with my own ideas. i have always felt that taking an interest in pakistani politics is futile. because everything in pakistan is extremely politicized, from choice of hospital to etiquette of urdu grammar, but the politics themselves follow a depressingly familiar, monotonous pattern. and just like we have politics everywhere other than in politics itself, we seem to have sex everywhere, other than in sex itself.

thus the film's body took shape.

it begins with a man who attacks his food with relish and passion, which he eats alone before entering the house. at home, he rejects the meal his wife had brought for the two of them to share. while she is away, he turns to watch an overtly sexual song, but switches to the news (which is always about politics :) ) when she comes back. he then leads her to the bedroom, and the camera doesn't show what happens. but he soon rushes out, covered in shame rather than lust, and washes it off in the shower. the woman is alone, bereft of all passion, or even motivation to clear up the room. she tries to eat, perhaps to partake in that pleasure her husband had alone, but she can't bring herself to do it.

but then came the actual shoot. and let me tell you, doing a single-take is probably the hardest thing to do. it works well in  a live situation, but in a narrative it really wears down on your flow. and i think this is where the film's greatest challenge arose - it was not conceived as a single shot. it was conceived as a story that was then tacked onto a single shot. and so the story's pace and pivots did not account for the demands made by the single shot. this issue was further compounded by the fact that i am someone whose strength as a filmmaker lies within the edit. to be stripped of all editing abilities was something i was distinctly uncomfortable with, and so i didn't take to the idea of a single-take at all.

i made that even more challenging with my decision to have both actors only visible from the waist down. it was meant to further accentuate the ubiquity of this situation (so that it was a man and a woman, rather than this person and that person) as well as play up the idea of how everything about sex itself is so shrouded. and to make matters worse, i did away with all dialogue - there are only two grunts and one sigh which make up the entire film's dialogue. keeping all of that in mind, the actors did a wonderful job. their only tools were their lower bodies and yet they managed to convey their roles admirably. it could've been better though had i rehearsed with them, but then that is how student projects, and my own laziness, goes.

the day before i began my edit, i came across a bizarre and wonderful thing. in my audio-vision class, our professor made us watch an entire film, which was highly unusual since we always watch clips instead. it was 87 minutes of overwhelming cinema - its disturbing how difficult it is to view despite its stellar beauty. the film was called  Koyaanisqatsi. Check out this stunning single take shot from the film - i can't believe this is real.



what influenced me with regards to this film was its soundtrack. check out the trailer below, and listen to the initial chanting, or just go up to 1:48 in the above clip.



i was convinced - i needed to score my film. but i wanted it to be haunting, and preferably bereft of lyrics because they could get too distracting, and impose their own meaning on the film. my wife suggested i check out rohail hyatt's work, and that was where i chose the song, Jaag Musafir.

when i had started the audio editing, i realised that the youtube page for the song also had an explanation for the lyrics and the song's message, which i later put on at the end of the film.

looking back at the choice of the song i have mixed emotions. on one hand i feel that it didn't help with regard to its intended purpose - which was to give life to the parts of the film where the one-shot parameters had left it dragging.

but then again, i was astounded by the happy coincidence that the song i had chosen had taken on the irony and cynicism of my views, and injected it with hope for salvation, for this wretched cycle to be broken. while my other two films were made with a sort of flippancy towards "messages" and "big ideas" this one was taking these things on. and i think that the song really challenged the sincerity of the film.

at the end, i feel that the critique of the film, and its ideas, were a lot more powerful than the actual film itself. still, i am happy with it, especially because of the visual style i managed to achieve with the editing. i didn't want to look like yet another student film, and while the camera lets that down, the lack of annoying sound jumps and the boldness of the scene's colors and boundaries take it beyond completely amateur stuff.

please let me know what you think of the film.

To Look or To Love - Voyeurism in Pakistan

This was meant to be a blog post - I had even written out the first para... then i decided it would do better as an idea for my first academic paper in like two and a half years.

so while the writing is not of the usual brilliance you have come to expect, and my non-plagiarized academic work is quite shabby, the contents are pretty contemporary and happening, so as the wise man said, "Enjooay..."

The aim of this paper is to use psychoanalysis to read two pieces of text in the form of e-mails. Both were written by students at a Pakistani university denouncing what they described as the “public display of affection.” But while the authors claimed that their protests were based on their values, this paper asserts that they were in fact a manifestation of their own voyeuristic tendencies.

I
A few weeks ago, one of Pakistan’s premier universities, the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) made global headlines after its administration decided to “ban kissing on campus.” Many of the international newspapers covering this story chose to focus on it as an example of cultural clashes within a country fighting “terrorism.” However, the entire issue speaks of a lot more than a simplistic cultural divide in Pakistani society.

The controversy began with the e-mails themselves – the first text chosen for this paper was the one that sparked the debate. Entitled ‘To Love or not to Love’ it was sent out to all the university’s students. It sparked a huge reaction from the students as well as staff, and the second chosen text was one of the earliest responses to the original e-mail.

(both e-mails are included at the end of this paper in their original format)

However, before turning to read these texts, we must familiarize ourselves with the concepts that inform their reading.

Jean Michel-Hirt, drawing on Freud, describes the concept of voyeurism as a “a deviant manifestation of sexuality that involves looking without being seen in order to obtain sexual pleasure.”

II
Voyeurism however is not merely the act of looking at what is illicit – it actually inhabits a far wider and more complex range of actions. Thus it can also be understood as a “…‘refusal’ to be seen as an object and, thus, a negation of object loss. It is an exclusive concentration on visual mastery, on the first position.”

This drive to gain ‘exclusive concentration’ of looking has been identified by scholars as prevalent in the process of narration. The narrator, by removing itself from the narration, gains the ability to see (and tell) without being seen itself. Hence, scholars posit, “that narrative is fundamentally voyeuristic, concerned with the veiling and unveiling of objects.”

Now let us turn to the texts in question. The first e-mail, which began the controversy, opens with the following lines:

“I don't know what is wrong with the new freshman,and some seniors too,they have a special and an uncontrolled need to seek physical consolation from the members of opposite sex many times in a day,in public,and in places where EVERYBODY can witness it.”

An initial reading would suggest that the author is merely bringing to attention a case of widespread exhibitionism (‘physical consolation’) and its consequent voyeuristic behavior (‘where EVERYBODY can witness it.’) However, the first act of voyeurism is actually the very process of putting this incident into a narrative form. It is this e-mail which establishes a narrator, and hence a voyeur, and through its dissemination, invites others to partake in this voyeuristic act.

In fact, the dissemination of this narrative is also an important facet of both texts. In the first e-mail, after providing graphic details of various incidents the author has witnessed on campus, she goes on to issue this warning:

“…If nothing is done about it then i'll take pictures of such things and attach them with my emails for everyone to see.)”

The author of the second text expresses her agreement with this threat, and also promises to carry it out as well.

“Otherwise I, too, am in. I WILL take pictures of what offends me and send it to everybody to see.”

Now, the very act of narration had already turned the authors into voyeurs in an academic understanding. By expressing their ability to take photographic evidence, they seem to be coming across as voyeurs in the popular understanding of the term as well.

But more importantly, it is the dissemination of this narrative which transforms the authors from voyeurs to pornographers, since according to Charnon-Deutsch, “The narrator is the voyeur, the one who becomes a pornographer in his role as witness and distributor of the story.”


III
Originally, Freud had expounded upon the idea of voyeurism, and its counter-part exhibitionism, as part of a dichotomy based on gender. Thus the male was the voyeur, the female the exhibitionist, and woven intrinsically into this idea was the notion of the voyeur seeking "to resolve the problem of dependency by possessing or controlling the other … by making the other person an object." Furthermore, “in psychological terms narrating means seeing… in order to avoid being seen, exerting power over an object in order not to be mastered by it.”

Thus we understand that narration and voyeurism are in a fundamental way related to power, and the ability to exert control over the object of the voyeur’s sight. In light of this relationship, the authors’ threats of taking photographs, and the very narration of the incidents, can also be seen as their ability to reduce those indulging in exhibitionist behavior as mere objects, over whom they seek to exert control.

And this idea of asserting power over the objects is reinforced multiple times in both texts:

“I openly challenge the fake hypocritical "tolerance" and "liberalism" being promoted on campus…”
“I demand that a set of rules be laid out so that the "sentiments" of not-so-unclutured people are not hurt…”

The author also incorporates another traditional method of differentiating and objectifying those subject to her looking by describing them as

“…people who [are] involved in this proud display of animal instincts in man.”

The idea of comparison with animals has been traditionally used to deny the object “participation in civilization (language, thought, culture) which differentiates [it] from whomever is seeing...”

IV
But further our reading of these texts, it is also necessary to understand the dynamics of the voyeurism. Davis, drawing upon Lacan, writes, “seeing is but a function in a largely unconscious discourse that can be glimpsed in what Lacan calls… the ‘Gaze,’ and… the subject who looks is the one who precisely is ‘seen’ by the nonvisual Gaze.” Silverman further expounds this Lacanian concept by writing that “it is precisely at that moment when the eye is placed at the keyhole that it is most likely to find itself subordinated to the Gaze.”

The reason it is important to understand the relationship between the voyeur and the Gaze is because of the reaction the Gaze produces within the voyeur. Continuing with Silverman, who writes that once the eye is subordinated to the Gaze, “the Gaze surprises the [subject] in the function of the voyeur, disturbs him, overwhelms him, and reduces him to shame.”

And it is this idea of shame that is an integral part of establishing both these texts as voyeuristic.
“I demand that a set of rules be laid out… so that we can go home and NOT for once,hide from our fathers our of sheer shame of what they saw.”

The author expresses a double set of voyeurism here, firstly by witnessing the acts of exhibitionism and finding herself subordinated by the Gaze, and hence reduced to shame. The second act is of seeing her father seeing as well, thus turning his voyeurism into an exhibitionist act for the author, and once again transforming into the Gaze which reduces the author to shame.

This idea of shame and voyeurism is expressed more explicitly by the second author, who writes that:

“The weirdest part is that WE, the ONLOOKERS, end up going red in the face and we try to hasten away from the 'crime site'! As if its OUR fault that we caught them red-handed! Normal human reaction to being caught in such situations is to hide one's face in shame,but in this situation,we,the "not-so-uncultured" need to look away and get OUR sentiments offended in the name of hypocritical liberalism!”

Here, the author has identified herself as the ‘onlooker’ and is surprised and angered by the shame she feels in looking. Rosenman quotes Sartre on the subject, who writes that “I am ashamed of myself as I appear to the Other… I am put in the position of passing judgment on myself as an object…” Rosenman writes that according to Tomkins, the origin of shame also lies in “the failure of distancing that ought to mask an intense investment.”

Thus the shame provoked in the authors is not due to the idea of such acts occurring, but rather by having witnessed such acts and being reduced to shame by the submission evoked by the resultant Gaze.

Furthermore, the idea of distancing oneself from the object is also apparent in the chosen texts. The first author suggests that the ‘offenders’ should find more surreptitious locations for their activities:

“Why don't they go back to using the DRs at night? Or behind the sports complex? or in the hockey fields?”

The suggestion makes clear that the author is not opposed to the acts themselves, for they obviously satisfy the voyeuristic urge, but that she rather opposes their being carried out within such immediacy, which confronts the voyeur’s ability to see without being seen.

V
Despite the various nuances with which this paper has attempted to show these texts as voyeuristic, a certain protest can be anticipated, namely that the authors were not seeking to derive any sexual pleasure from their acts of looking.

Hence we must also understand how a voyeur experiences pleasure from his acts in order to understand these texts more properly.

According to Blank, “The voyeur achieves gratification in a complicated way. He looks at the forbidden, expresses aggression in his defiant behavior, avoids any commitment to interpersonal intimacy and, all the while, in his passive fantasy needs not surrender one iota of his ideals and imagined assertiveness.”

Blank’s definition largely encapsulates the actions of the authors as described in the text. As is clear, both authors admit to having witnessed ‘forbidden’ behavior. Their various threats, most notably that of producing and distributing photographic evidence, can be read as manifestations of their aggression and defiance. And finally, their numerous appeals to ideals of cultural and social values make clear that they do not feel the need to apologize for their voyeuristic acts, or even concede the higher moral ground. In fact, as one of the authors writes the offensive actions are leading to rumors that “most of the girls in the university are not virgins” and it is leading to the university’s “credibility” being challenged. This can be read as a justification proffered for the voyeuristic act within the garb of protecting ideals.

Therefore, we can see the how the authors were able to achieve voyeuristic gratification in accordance with the formula that Blank provides.

VI
In conclusion, our reading the two texts seeks to confirm the voyeurism of the authors. In order to do so, we have looked at how the act of narration is fundamentally voyeuristic. We have seen how narration and voyeurism are about power, and how the voyeur seeks to exert dominance over the object. We have also explored the idea of the voyeur being seen by the Gaze, and how that provokes a sense of shame. And finally we have seen how the voyeur gains gratification. With each intellectual leap, we have been able to read how the texts themselves conform to these facets of voyeurism, and how they can be understood as primarily voyeuristic pieces.
VII
As an afterthought, it is interesting to note that the university decided to ban “kissing on campus.” Since voyeurism is associated with power and control, it is probably no surprise that the exhibitionist act was ‘punished’ and the voyeuristic one ‘rewarded.’


Bibliography: Ahmed, Issam. "Top Pakistan university to ban kissing." Csmonitor.com. Christian Science Monitor, 14 Oct. 2009. Web. 31 Oct. 2009.
Benjamin, J. "The Bonds of Love: Rational Violence and Erotic Domination." The Future of Difference. Eds. Hester Eisenstein and Alice Jardine. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 41-70.
Blank, Leonard. "Nakedness and Nudity: A Darwinian Explanation for Looking and Showing Behavior." Leonardo 6.1 (1973): 23-27. Print.
Charnon-Deutsch, Lou. "Voyeurism, Pornography and "La Regenta"" Modern Language Studies 19.4 (1989): 93-101. Print.
Davis, Robert C. "Lacan, Poe, and Narrative Repression." MLN 98.5 (1983): 983-1005. Print. Freud, S. ‘Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality’, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. and ed. James Strachey, 24 vols. [London, 1953-74], 7:167).
Hirt, J-M, Voyeurism. International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Ed. Alain de Mijolla. Gale Cengage, 2005, eNotes.com. 2006. 31 Oct, 2009
Press Trust of India. “To kiss or not to kiss keeps Pakistani Tweeters busy” Hindustantimes.com, Hindustan Times, 19 Oct 2009. Web. 30 Oct. 2009.
Rosenman, Ellen B. Unauthorized pleasures: accounts of Victorian erotic experience. Ithaca, New York: Cornell UP, 2003. Print.

Appendix:
(Text 1)
Subject: To Love or Not to Love
Date: Sep 11 2009
Dear All
I have been reduced to throw this out there because of what i have been witnessing in Lums for around a month now. What has to be kept in mind here is the fact that the following has nothing to do with "religion" or with anybody's personal beliefs so please,refrain from sending any emotional "liberal" emails in reply to this.
Public Display of Affection.
I don't know what is wrong with the new freshman,and some seniors too,they have a special and an uncontrolled need to seek physical consolation from the members of opposite sex many times in a day,in public,and in places where EVERYBODY can witness it.
Quoting few instances: (Readers' Discretion is advised)
1) Standing at the main entrance,a girl stands on tip of her toes and kisses a boy good bye.
2) Lying in the lawn in front of the library,a boy rolls over the girl lying down beside him and remains in this posture.
3) Sitting in the academic block, a boy constantly rubs a girl's leg,which are already half bare,with his hand inside her capries.
(These are just few instances,i have no reason to make these up.If nothing is done about it then i'll take pictures of such things and attach them with my emails for everyone to see.)
Our (people who aren't involved in this proud display of animal instincts in man) parents come to lums to pick us up and they have,i can gladly say,some sense of social (MIND YOU,i didn't say religious) sentiment intact so they get offended. Our crediblity, and the credibility of our institution in our society is challenged when aunties spread rumors of most of the girls in lums not being virgin spread all over the city. Even my parents were reluctant to send me to lums just because of the "enviroment" here.
I openly challenge the fake hypocritical "tolerance" and "liberalism" being promoted on campus.If irreligious,uncultured (by this i mean those who don't respect a culture's values),unsocial have the need to be tolerated and have "sentiments" which need to be respected,then so do religious,cultured and social people.
This "tolerance" for each other has to be mutual.If we give some,then these people need to do it too.Why don't they go back to using the DRs at night? Or behind the sports complex? or in the hockey fields?
I have never seen a religious person reading their holy book out in the open then why can't they hide their anti social and irreligious practices too?!
I demand that a set of rules be laid out so that the "sentiments" of not-so-unclutured people are not hurt and so that we can go home and NOT for once,hide from our fathers our of sheer shame of what they saw.
I am hoping that the OSA will look into this so i have not cc-ed this email to the VC.
regards,
Tajwar.

(Text 2)
Subject: (Re:) To Love or Not to Love
Date: 13th September 2009
Thank you so much Tajwar for speaking out.
The weirdest part is that WE, the ONLOOKERS, end up going red in the face and we try to hasten away from the 'crime site'! As if its OUR fault that we caught them red-handed! Normal human reaction to being caught in such situations is to hide one's face in shame,but in this situation,we,the "not-so-uncultured" need to look away and get OUR sentiments offended in the name of hypocritical liberalism!
This is a "STUDENT AFFAIR", OSA stands for OFFICE OF THE STUDENT AFFAIRS. I hope those cc-ed in this email can see the OBVIOUS reaction this issue has raised and can respond and do something about it.
Otherwise I, too, am in. I WILL take pictures of what offends me and send it to everybody to see.
regards,
Nabiha

Phallic Phallacies

AMpakistanis who have lived abroad, or more likely studied abroad, always carry a hang up of having been there. they love making endless comparisons, using it perpetually in arguments, talking about the best quiche they ever had, the most stunning concert they heard, the most fun they had, the best drink they ever tasted - while they were abroad.
i should know - i am one of them.

my stories inevitably begin with "when i was in america..."

so this is one of them stories. *these*

when i was in america, at my college, we would have a weekly assembly, where people from various countries would mark their country's independence day with a presentation about their country, they would play their music and dress in their native clothes, and talk about their country in general.

now firstly 14th august fell during the summer vacations, so i didn't have an option for that. but in my second year me and my first year country mate did do something for 23rd march.

back in 2002, pakistan was a country not many people knew about, and almost no one gave a shit about. in essence, the good old days.we forsook the talking about our country for a two minute video. the first slide began with the claim that pakistan was a country that was the bomb.

that was followed by a montage of pictures of beautiful pakistani women, and those of our nuclear missiles, played over salman ahmed's version of the national anthem.

as i recalled that incident now, the first thing that struck me was how incredibly misogynist it was. but i also recalled it as a deliberate attempt by us about making people know where and what pakistan was by making obvious the two most shocking things about our country - that we had women who were not wearing burkhas, and that we had a far more naked nuclear obsession.

my friends were genuinely surprised, perhaps because at age 16-18 kids are not as politically inclined.

regardless, the prinicpal was aghast - she summoned us and lectured us about the inappropriateness of the message we were putting out about our country. she was almost weeping when she spoke about how much she would hate someone portraying her native Colombia in such a manner.

thinking about it now, i wonder why i decided to present pakistan in such a manner. instinctively, the first response i recall was wanting people to realise what and where pakistan was - i mean before the epicenter of terrorism stuff most people thought of us as somewhere between saddam and apu.i also remember that at that time i found our nuclear pride a bit hilarious - i didn't know whether to laugh or cry when the people of our bum fucked nation were distributing sweets in public to celebrate the nuclear tests.yet, i am still not sure if my eventual message was as genuinely satirical as i recall. because eventually, i was projecting the two things pakistan the nation, the construct and the state love doing - brandying off our nuclear power, and exploiting our women.


essentially, both impulses arise out of the strenuously patriarchal nature of our society. the phallic missiles aside, the nuclear bomb is a blatant display of geopolitical machismo.
it is perhaps the IR equivalent of wearing one of these.
as for women, i don't know if i really need to qualify anything here. women in pakistan exist in a surreal reality.
they are upheld as the barometer of our morality and values, and are hence punished barbarically if they stray even in the slightest from the standards we uphold for ourselves...
...yet at the same time, it is a national pastime to ogle at women, to fantasize about women, to poke women's private parts in public places, to fornicate with women with or without their consent.

for many young pakistani males, getting together to bang a hooker is an acceptable weekend activity. if my former driver is to be believed, in rural areas getting together to gang bang any woman is acceptable weekend activity.
we have found ways to make sleeping with nine year olds religiously acceptable, and if we feel that we must protect their honor, we have found justifications for marrying them off to the Holy Book.

essentially then, the interplay between women and nukes was so vital in my presentation (even though i didn't realise it) because it represents the pakistani psyche, with both elements representing integral parts of our masculinity - with the nukes being the national penis, and the women being the national penis receptacle.

put in such a context one can understand why just about every problem in pakistan is inevitably attributed to a foreign ploy designed to steal our nukes. in essence, we are afraid of being castrated by the big white man. we are afraid they will take away our penises.
so even though we are largely poor and illiterate as a nation, and remarkably fucking corrupt and lest we forget, in the eye of the global shitstorm, our primary obsession is the nukes and their planned theft.
because, as i just said, without the nukes we would be chakkay, heejray, na-mard.
so imagine the delightful irony of this delightful situation, described here in the words of my colleague

"The entire national security doctrine is based on the revenge of a lover..."

it appears that a couple of pakistani nuke scientists - oh those epitomes of our nation's valor - were willing to fucking sell out the nation's grassy diet for a little bit of cash. if we extend our analogy here in, some pakistani males were willing to castrate our national lun to buy some rolexes or what not. to make these guys even more scum of the earth, one of these fuckers had an office romance (which i find abhorrent) and then decided to jilt his lover.

motha-fucka.

in essence, the pakistani male is willing to chop off his own cock for the sake of some money, which he would probably spend on getting a hooker upon which he would realise that he no longer has a dick and thus the money and his penis would both go to waste.
now, as my fiance reminded me, it was a woman however, who helped us retain our luns, and thus through perverted pakistani logic, our murdangi.
and what makes this woman, who was also a nuclear scientist by the way, even more impressive, is that she did not do it for the national cock, but rather out of the fury generated by a love betrayed.
now if there is one thing we can do right, it's love. love is a good enough reason to do anything, and if someone fucks with your love, being delivered to the ISI is a pretty easy let off.

so next time you bitch and moan about the fact that the foreigners are looking to castrate the nation and run off with the nukes, remind yourself that those who rule, those who obsess about their phalluses the most, are the ones that are most willing to sell them off for some money.

like every other problem in pakistan, it seems that only those who are getting fucked will be around to save the country (and it's penis) when it needs them.