IngridGiles’ funny post on her first proposal (http://www.tckid.com/group/my-first-proposal/) from a person from a patriarchal and repressed society reminded me of my first mirror culture shock experiences as a (then) practicing Muslim adjusting to the extremely sexually open societies on the west and east coasts of the USA.
Incident 1:
Ramadhan is coming to a close and I’ve had my most rewarding month of fast. I’m feeling mellow, enjoying the sunshine and walking to a campus library when a red flashy sports car pulls up.
the window winds down. I obligingly approach.
“Hey, do you know where i can find some porno movies?” asks a dashing middle-aged South American man.
“No, I’m afraid not,” I confess truthfully, but add helpfully, “maybe you can find some at Blockbusters,” and proceed to give directions to the Blockbuster on Durant Avenue.
“Do you know where i can find porno magazines?”
“Sorry, I don’t.”
“You’re a good looking kid,” says the man.
“Thanks,” I reply, thinking that perhaps he’s an eccentric talent spotter.
“Is that cop coming for me?” he asks, as he peers behind at a woman cop approaching.
“No, I don’t think so,” I reply, wondering why he’d think that.
“Are you a student?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I reply, “are you faculty?”
“No.”
Trying to keep the flow and avoid an awkward pause, I naively continue: “Are you here on holiday?”
“Yeah, actually, I’m looking for a good looking kid like you to give me a blow-job.”
“Right then. Good luck, have a good holiday,” I tell him and walk away.

Incident 2:
I’m lying outside another one of the campus libraries, reading something for class under the Californian sun. As I turn the page, I notice a young African American woman appears out of nowhere, her face near mine, bending over, her ample bosoms showing their full worth, asking me for a spare dollar for the BART because she’s lost her wallet.
I oblige, and she asks, very casually, “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No, I don’t,” I reply sheepishly.
“Do you have sex a lot?”
“I’m a Muslim. I don’t want to have sex until I’m married or have found the one I love.”
“People actually do that?!” she asks in an angry kind of statement, summarily picks up her ample bosoms and walks off in a huff. To the BART, presumably.

Incidents 3 and 4:
I’m at Washington DC’s Dupont Circle, reading on a bench by a tree. By this time, I’ve adopted some Californian culture and I have hair that curls at its ends reaching down my back a couple of inches below my shoulders. A guy in his 30s introduces himself as a Pakistani, “Mohammed Ahmed”, and asks me where I’m from and where my parents are. We talk for a while and then he asks to swap numbers. I mention that I have a girlfriend, and he finds out that she’s back in Berkeley. He then proceeds to waste the better part of half an hour trying to convince me of the benefits of experimentation and the relationship allowances that distance gives.

Convinced that my hair was the source of attention that I could do without, I patronised the local barber (a Christian Lebanese man, as it turned out). He too had the same pearls of wisdom to share about experimentation and oooh wasn’t I enjoying this special massage, you know he doesn’t just do it for anyone who walks in. He told me how he was the sex slave of some super rich woman in her 50s who didn’t know what to do with her wealth and that he was wanting to move on. Weary of what kind of ‘special’ compensation he was looking for, I tipped him as much as I would normally pay for a haircut and never set foot in his part of town again.

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