 Why Is School Important?
When we think of school, we shouldn’t be thinking only about subjects like math or history. As important as learning these is, every school should have more to offer to students who spend over a decade there trying to learn how the world works. Schools must contribute to building the personalities of their students and develop their creativity. As students feel the need to form an opinion about hundreds of things around them in a short time, they tend to mirror what their classmates or teachers do or support as that gives them a sense of belonging. Sadly, Iraq isn’t the place that offers the best education. Our school books rarely include subjects that challenge student’s brains or encourage them to be different and unique. Our educational system is memorization based which teaches students to search for someone else’s opinion- like a teacher, or a parent, or even a stranger to guide them on how to feel about something. And that teaches students one thing! Which is that almost nothing of what they say is valid unless it gets approved by others. And here is where we need to see some change. We need books and teachers that empower students to build better future for themselves regardless of the limitations that get enforced by society. Where Do Students Learn About Their Sexuality? Topics such as sexual and gender diversity are never discussed inside any Iraqi classroom. Even science books, that are supposed to discuss valuable facts on how diverse and exciting our universe is, avoid talking about such subjects claiming that they ruin student’s brains. From the other side, Iraqi parents aren’t the best option when trying to discuss the subject of sexuality. With parents not discussing this topic at home and the absence of proper guidance from the schools side, students often form that fear of asking and learning about their sexuality, sex, protection, and relationships in general. They grow to think that there’s one way to live this life and it’s the way that their society chooses for them. Their roles get determined based on their genders and their sexuality are never questioned. Even if they had luck finding out who they really are, they will barely find a chance to express it. The internet might be the best option to them to figure out things! But is it a safe option? Do Iraqi Teachers Encourage Their Students To Use Their Brains? Our system doesn’t encourage its teachers to improve their teaching over time. A large percentage of teachers start teaching in their early twenties and retire by their early sixties with almost the same equipment, the same teaching strategies, and the same mentalities. Some might even find it offensive to learn from young students who come to them with challenging questions. “You memorize this question and its answer as they are, you go to the exam and write exactly the same. Then if you like, you can just forget about it all. Just make sure to keep the information in your head until the exam is over.” That’s what one of my math teachers used to tell me. All we can say is that majority of them stick to one fixed teaching method that goes on and on for years and years. If we want our future to be brighter than our present and past, we must understand that teachers require training and guidance as much as their students. Teachers have a lot to learn including how to accept their students who are different. Does Iraq Offer Teachers Who Instigates Violence & Hatred? Benjamin is a biromantic, bigender, asexual Iraqi guys who is 18 years old. Ben talks about his negative experience that happened back in 2018 by saying, “Like any normal school student, I was attending my physics class when I noticed that my teacher kept giving me weird looks. I immediately knew that he didn’t like me as he kept bothering me with his hurtful words during the first and second lectures. By the third lecture, the teacher started asking the class a very racist questions that had nothing to do with the subject he was supposed to be teaching. Then he asked me about Lot, feminism, and makeup. The teacher spent all the third lecture talking about how people like me must be burned or thrown from high buildings. His words were full of hatred and at the end he threatened to dismiss me from his class. He actually tried to do that but luckily my father came to the school and solved the problem after a long fight. That teacher never stopped hating me. Also, the bullying and the harassment that was coming from many students around me never stopped. To be fair, some students were by my side but there were others who expressed their hatred by accusing of receiving money for sex. Actually, one of the students offered me money to have sex with him. As someone who has been through such an experience and understands the difficulty of it, I advise teachers to use the power they are given in order to end hatred and support anyone who is like me. I believe their support can make such a great impact on our society.” What Are We Celebrating Today? Today, January 24th, marks the International Day of Education which is celebrated to acknowledge the important role of education and the impact it has on people’s lives. Today we mention how well-planned strategies of teaching can make the work of all the Iraqi NGOs that are fighting to end sexism, violence, homophobia, and discrimination easier. It’s a good time to let our teachers everywhere in Iraq know that what they encourage their students to accept or reject can have an impact on everybody’s lives sooner or later including theirs. One teacher can change a whole class by choosing an effective teaching method that encourages them to question everything around them and to believe that one idea in the head of any of them can be the answer to a question that no one is yet able to answer. To all the Iraq teachers out there who empower their students, who give them hope, and who give them space to figure out themselves, IraQueer sends you the best wishes. Happy International Day of Education. Rand IraQueer
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 There’s this confusion that surrounds the concept of asexuality which makes people say a lot of wrong judgments. Asexuals don’t lack the confidence to have sex, it’s also not that they haven’t yet found the love of their lives. And being asexual definitely doesn’t affect how sensitive or emotional those individuals could be. Every single asexual has a unique personality and life choices that aren’t less valuable than anyone else’s.
Let us begin by explaining what asexuality actually is. Asexuality or also named “ace”, is having a low or no sex drive meaning a person is capable of having sex, masturbating, and even getting married or becoming a parent. The whole idea is that asexuals don’t feel a strong need –sometimes no need at all, to do all or any of these things compared to other people who come from different sexual orientations. Most importantly, Asexuality isn’t limited to one fixed definition because it is a long spectrum. That means we can’t put all asexuals in one group and expect them to behave the same and express their sexuality in the exact same way. Some choose to be in relationships while others prefer to build strong friendships that offer them a great amount of love. A common misunderstanding about asexuality could be to classify asexuals as gay or straight based on the gender of the person who they build a strong bond with. Asexuals are neither gay nor straight. Meaning they are capable of building romantic bonds with people from the same sex or the opposite sex and YES that still doesn’t make them gay or straight. When it comes to asexuality, there are two orientations which are the romantic orientation and the sexual orientation and each of these two has several identities falling under it. Asexuals aren’t necessarily spending their lives without any partners or dying alone. They have feelings and emotional needs that they choose to fulfill the way they find convenient. When it comes to the romantic orientation, asexuals could be classified as either homoromantic or heteroromantic. Homoromanticism is when an asexual person builds a romantic bond with someone from the same gender while heteroromanticism is when an asexual person builds a romantic bond with someone from the opposite gender. Baghdad, Mohammed, and Bassam are three Iraqi asexuals who come from different backgrounds to explain how each defines asexuality: “I remember that when my boyfriend leaned in to kiss me for the first time, the kiss didn’t give me any good feelings. Actually, I was feeling uncomfortable” Baghdad, who is an Iraqi asexual girl talks about her experience. She says, “I was 22 back when I was in relationship with a guy that I thought I was in love with. As the time for the first kiss came, the kiss didn’t give me any good feelings and that made curious but I didn’t make any assumptions. I didn’t mind building close connections with people, it wasn’t like I hated being surrounded by people but the problem was that as someone got physically too close to me to get a hug or a kiss, I immediately felt uncomfortable. I had and still have the same feelings whether the person was a male or a female and as these feelings never left, I started questioning my sexuality. As an asexual, I get a lot of these comments that tell that I just didn’t get my kiss from the right guy, or that I will change my mind as I find the right person, or that I am just not ready for it as things will change in the future. I am not sure if things will change that much in the future, even if they do and I decide to be in a sexual relationship with someone that won’t take my right to call myself asexual. At the end, this is who I am even if others keep questioning it. Sadly, most of the judgments and negative comments I hear about my sexuality come from my family members since they don’t seem to accept the idea. Lucky me, I am living away from them and that means there are way less arguments I have to go through about this subject. With less pressure from my family side and constant support from one of my relatives, I am doing okay. I am giving myself time and not rushing it by looking for new relationships. Maybe, by taking it easy, I will figure out more things about myself that I am currently unaware of. And although my sexuality gets questioned a lot as I previously mentioned, I still think that the Iraqi community accepts me and other asexuals much better compared to others from the LGBT+ community. It doesn’t seem right but the way the Iraqi society thinks about it is that no sex is better than having sex with someone of the same sex or gender. Unfortunately, our society thinks about relationships only from the sexual point of view. Not much importance is given to the romantic side and to the intimacy. Our society still doesn’t focus on what a partner can offer me to make me feel better from the inside without thinking about sex and any sexual intercourse.” “I just hate how the majority of people think that asexuals can’t be sensitive or emotional” Mohammed’s story began when he got introduced to the concept of asexuality two years ago as he found an Arabic page that discusses it. “Before finding that page, I used to call myself a sexless as that was the only common concept in the Iraqi society. It’s hard to say that there was one specific experience that made me question and determine my sexuality so it’s wiser to say that I learned about it after several experiences that lasted for years. The most notable would be the time when I had the change to have sex with a person. Although I was charmed by the beauty of their body, that wasn’t enough to make me want sex. To me, I believe that relationships and connections are all about true love and true passion and that made me realize I was different from many others since my teenage years. Sometimes, I feel the need to find a partner and build a strong relationship with them, but other times, I run away from this need. I would say that I’m 80% against having kids and I know very well that our society pushes everyone into having kids so I don’t think I will be ever encouraged to do otherwise even if I called myself asexual. But I will definitely do what’s best for me rather than what the society wants me to be.” “Asexuals aren’t psychopaths. Although people say the opposite the whole time, they don’t have any evidence. Almost all of them don’t even know how and when to consider a person a psychopath. I believe that most people just don’t like to support each other, rather they enjoy ruining each other’s lives by bully. At the end, even if I had a mental illness, I wouldn’t ever appreciate it if someone comes and explains me that I’m ill as if they are cursing me” Bassam, who is another Iraqi asexual man says, “When I was sixteen years old, I realized that I was different from my friends who were my age or only few years older than me. They liked to talk about girls sexually while I didn’t know how to interact in such conversations because the subject wasn’t really appealing to me. At first, I thought I was just too young to find the subject interesting. A year later, when I was 17, I realized that I was asexual by reading an article about asexuality that I found on a scientific Facebook page. Not a long time after that, I found the asexuality page that was run by Alaa Yasin and Nabeel Alal who introduced me to a group of asexuals on Facebook. And that was the time when things became clearer to me. Usually, I don’t care how others see me or think of me when they know I’m asexual. Still, when someone asks me about the subject, I try my best to explain the meaning of asexuality clearly so the person doesn’t misunderstand it. And when it comes to my family, they don’t believe there’s such a thing as being asexual so we try not to discuss this subject too often. As an asexual man, I hear comments like “You aren’t a man” and I believe that others like me hear the same or even uglier comments. Although I’m against reproduction and never planning on having kids, I still wouldn’t let anyone stop me in case I was planning on becoming a father. The society shouldn’t take away my right to do that. The way I define asexuality would be that it has multiple types meaning there are asexuals who don’t get attracted neither romantically nor sexually to others while there are asexuals who get attracted romantically but not sexually to others meaning they refuse to have sex. There are asexuals who have an extremely low sexual attraction and that is called Grey Asexuality. Also, there are others, like myself, who experience the sexual attraction only when they are in a serious relationship and the love between the couple is too deep. Asexuality is expressed differently by different asexual individuals. I personally masturbate and I believe that everyone does that. I don’t like being in a relationship because I’m simply not interested. Maybe I just prefer getting myself a dog and living alone in a peaceful and quite place. That’s the way I want to live my life while other asexuals probably have different plans on how to live their lives. I believe that each one of us has the right to choose how to spend this life. I see that the majority of Iraqis might accept asexuality more than accepting homosexuality and that’s because Iraq is an Islamic country. Iraqis wouldn’t have a problem if you decide not to have sex but their problem is when you decide to have it. And that’s why being gay, for example, is way more rejected than being asexual. In my opinion, homosexuality and asexuality are two different things that I don’t want to compare, but I think that it all starts with the way kids are raised in this country. Kid’s heads get filled with old religious ideas that create this hatred in their heads for people who decide to live in a different style. That makes some of them hate homosexuals even without knowing what the word “Homosexuality’ means. After all, the problem with our Arabic communities is their lack of knowledge which creates all that hatred and misunderstandings.” As a reader, tell us your journey of discovering your sexuality. What your biggest challenges were during that time? And most importantly, who helped you during that phase of your life? IraQueer likes to know more about these interesting stories. Rand IraQueer |