Whenever I’m overwhelmed, or feel like I need to find myself again, or my mission, I write.

Being Bushra Apa isn’t easy.

Like most South Asian gals growing up in the West, my parents gave me little to no guidance on sex and sex education, other than “Don’t have a boyfriend.” I respected, and was scared of, my parents, so I waited to have a boyfriend until I was 20 (which, of course, led to its own plethora of problems, but I digress).

As a child, I always gravitated towards what wasn’t meant for me. I can’t have a boyfriend? Fine, I’ll have one vicariously through the adult fiction novels from the Queens Public Library. This is where I learned more about sex and sex education. My interest in sex education peaked at the Bronx High School of Science, when I finally took my junior year health class with Ms. Sutnitsky.

Yes, I was just as traumatized from the miracle of life video.

Things took a different turn for me and my values in 2012, following the brutal gang-rape, and murder of 22-year old Jyoti Singh in Delhi, India. In December, 2012, Jyoti and a male friend took a private bus home after watching a movie together. There were six other men on the bus, including the driver.

When the bus took a different route, an argument ensued between the driver and Jyoti’s friend. The six men quickly overpowered him, and then beat and raped Jyoti. The violence she faced was so brutal, that they disemboweled her with two metal rods.

Though Jyoti died from her injuries, her rape and murder led to a revolution in India and around the world. Protests shook the nation as women, and men, marched in honor of her. It was, perhaps, the first time many had come to terms with the prevalent sexual violence that women face in India, and South Asia.

A photo of protesters following the rape and murder of Jyoti Singh.

Jyoti was one year older than me. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of us could have been her. I started to follow the sexual violence news stories in South Asia.

Why is sexual violence so common in South Asia?

South Asia seemed like such a hypocritical place. The dichotomy of perceived conservative values, while some of the most brutal, sexual violence is regularly carried out on women and children. Why is it that Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh have such conservative, patriarchal values, and yet some of the most heinous stories of rape come from these very countries?

In 2001, 12-year-old Purnima Rani Shil was attacked and raped by a group of 30-40 men in Sirajganj, Bangladesh following an election.
In 2017, a father in Madaripur, Bangladesh was arrested for raping his biological daughter.
In 2018, 6-year-old Zainab Ansari was raped and murdered in Kasur, Pakistan.
In 2020, a group of teenaged boys in Lahore, Pakistan gangraped a kitten to death.
In 2022, four poachers in India filmed themselves raping a monitor lizard.

These articles are just a tiny fraction of the sexual violence people face. But why?

Lack of sex education: sex and sex education are considered taboo in south asia. Though it is traditionally believed that it is the parents’ duty to teach sex education to their children, this does not happen in practice. Without these necessary conversations on consent, bodily autonomy, and puberty, most South Asians move through life with warped views on sex.
Consent and the patriarchy: Consent is a foreign concept because consent does not need to be required between husband and wife. Because South Asia is a largely conservative group of peoples, sex is only to be enjoyed between a heterosexual couple that is married. Many believe that sex is a right of the husband and a wife cannot contest that. In fact, marital rape is still legal in india and women are fighting to ban it.
But how can marital rape exist? The very concept that a woman is allowed to deny sex to her husband is considered taboo altogether. Wives, and women, exist to serve their bodies to men, so anything less is considered blasphemous to traditional beliefs. This is upheld by the patriarchy.
Sexual repression, pornography, and hypermodesty: Sex is a biological need. It is healthy, and normal, to have a sex drive. Because sex, and sex for pleasure, is seen as “dirty” and a sin, due to cultural and religious beliefs, needs are repressed. However, now that more and more South Asians have access to cell phones and the internet, people meet their needs with pornography.
Excessive levels of pornographic consumption effects views on sex and creates unhealthy expectations on what sex could, and should, be like. In other words, imagine living in a small town in Bangladesh, using an old iPhone to watch free porn videos and believing that a woman’s vulva should be hairless, pink, and sex should include choking or other non-consenting kinks.
Hypermodesty culture largely polices the clothing of women. Dependant upon the town, village, or city, women are excluded from public spaces. They are either encouraged to stay home, or avoid public spaces altogether to deter jeering, or sexual harassment. When women who enter public spaces, many feel encouraged, or are coerced into wearing more traditional, and modest clothing such as the burqa, or niqab, or additional layers of clothing. Hypermodesty culture leads to hypsexuality because when women are hidden, or erased from public space, men are more likely to jeer, gawk, sexually harass, or “eve tease.”

Because sex is repressed, and due to the patriarchy, anything goes. Men and boys will get their needs met whether it means raping an animal, child, or other non-consenting person.

In fact, sexual violence is so common, that I believe there are higher percentages of young boys who have been molested than girls, and that’s simply because the family structure is more invested in protecting a girl’s “honor,” and that boys “can’t” be raped.

When sexual violence is so rampant, so violent that it affects the livelihood of every living being, it is clear that this is a public health issue and a South Asian sexual revolution is desperately needed.

How the Website Came to Be

Any one who’s ever been Facebook friends with me knows how depressing and annoying my statuses can be. I’ve regularly written essays on crime, rape, sexual violence, annoying auntie dynamics, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (#FreePalestine)

In my 20s, in the midst of these horrendous news stories and my long, winding, stories, I began to think about how wonderful it would be, and how important, to have a centralized, free platform that would teach sex education.

Rapists now face the death penalty in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, but simply teaching “Don’t rape,” is not enough when layers of misinformation, societal structures, and ultra-conservative religious values help sexual violence proliferate. Consent had to be taught at the source. From the beginning.

I spent my time working full-time from ITN Networks, to NYC Emergency Management, and spent the remainder arguing with random people online, advocating for sexual education.

And then I lost my dad in 2019, and the pandemic followed in 2020.

How death shaped me

I lost my dad suddenly. And though I haven’t entirely forgiven him for the decades of domestic abuse, gambling, and infidelity towards my mother, I was still heartbroken. Like I had lost a part of myself. What no one tells you about death is that when one parent dies, you are suddenly much more wary of losing the other parent. (Especially when you love them more…sorry pops!)

The pandemic was a huge “Fuck you” to society because the entirety of our world learned, simultaneously, that life is fleeting and it is short. We all faced death, many for the first time, together and there went our drive to dedicate our days to long commutes, useless, underpaying, politically-driven, 9-5 jobs, and other stupid practices that did little to enrich our lives.

I began to think about my life, my journey, and the impact i want to leave on this Earth before my time comes. I mean, we’re all going to die anyway, do you really think this bad bitch wants to work an office job for the rest of her life? No, thanks.

I realized, quite quickly, that if anyone were to build a sex education platform for South Asia, it would be me.

I mean, “Why not me?” I spent years secretly reading about sex education, I knew how to create marketing plans, social media content, and how to build a website. After all, I did most of the social media messaging alone for my agency at the height of the pandemic. I knew I could do it.

One night, in 2020, drunk off of a few beers, i began writing outline of the website. What would the tabs be? What topics could i cover? Which website building platform could I use to create this? How will this be translated?

It took over a year to build, and translate the website. It covered consent, the various definitions of sex, reproductive health, good touch vs. bad touch, sexually transmitted diseases and more. I knew there was much more to be done, but this was a good start. I managed to balance covering the basics while being mindful of the conservative community I was serving.

The first variation of the platform would have to be in Bangla because i was born in Bangladesh. Though i am American, I am ethnically Bengali, and with more than 210 million Bangla speakers around the world, I knew this was an untapped population that desperately needed this resource.

I made sure not to delve too deeply into certain topics because it is integral for my community to trust me. The last thing I needed them to do was to consider me a liberal, Western, atheist trying to infiltrate Bangladesh. (For reference, i have already been called this).

Preparing for the launch meant not only creating the platform, messaging, graphics, and social media accounts, but I needed to warn my family. Public perception is important in Bangladeshi society and I have no intentions of dishonoring my loved ones. In an effort to soften the blow, so to speak, I shared the site with my favorite loved ones so they were aware of my efforts to receive their blessing.

My mom was cautious, but I had her support, which meant the world.

I officially launched the website in December, 2021.

To be continued…