Naima B. Robert – Honest Marriage Advice for Muslims on Sex, Desire and Dissatisfaction!
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Assalamu
alaikum everyone.
How is everybody doing guys? Let me know
if you are hearing me
loud and clear.
Let me make sure that the chat is
not disabled
because last time nobody could chat. Guys, let
me know. Just test out the chat. Let's
see if it's working today.
Hey, everyone.
Please have a go. We'll see if the
chat's working for us.
If not yay. Yay. I see it. Hey.
There's sister Amina.
There she is.
Let me get you in here as a
panelist, my dear.
Right.
Nice to see you guys. Nice to see
you. Masha'Allah.
Excellent. Excellent. We are live in YouTube. We're
live on YouTube. Masha'Allah.
Salam Alaikum everyone.
Welcome. Welcome. Please do put in the salaam
as you come into the room.
Share this link
with those that you know and love.
Masha'Allah. Let me make sure that my dear
sister has the ability to go on video.
I'm gonna make you a cohost, sis.
Tell me guys, were you here yesterday?
Were you here last night? Did you catch
sister Ifeht's,
presentation?
Did you catch the village auntie's presentation?
I want to know all about it. I
wanna know how it was for you, what
your takeaways were.
I'm just gonna make sure that we are
live
on YouTube and check the chat in there.
Sister Amina, let me know if you're having
any trouble
with
there you are. There she is.
Sis.
Hope you can hear me. Perfectly well.
Perfectly well. So good to have you. It's
nice to see you again.
You're looking forward to the topic tonight?
Yes. I mean,
ironically enough, I know it's, you know, a
touchy subject, but I I like talking about
this. I think it's super important, and I
actually talk about it regularly. So I'm really
glad that we're having spaces to make this,
you know, a safe environment for people to
actually feel feel comfortable enough to talk about
it. So Alhamdulillah.
Excellent. Well, that's why I've invited you. Now
sis, if you know anything about
my channel,
is that bad internet follows me around.
Right?
So I don't want
my bad connection to impact you. So what
we'll do is we'll have a little preamble.
We'll have a little chat to start you
off.
Let the let the viewers know who you
are, you know, and kind of why this
isn't you know, why I've brought you here
to talk about this, and I'm gonna come
off camera and let you riff. Is that
okay with you?
If you like. Yeah. Yeah. Mainly because and
I'll be here, you know, asking questions and,
you know, reading questions from the chat, but
just the video situation, it can be a
bit difficult sometimes. So we'll see how we
go inshallah.
Alright.
We're live on YouTube.
The people are there doing their thing. So
let's start the recording, shall we guys?
Bismillah.
Bismillah. Assalamu
alaikum everyone. Welcome to
day 2 of the intimacy conversation.
I'm super excited to be tonight is a
marathon.
We're starting at 7 PM
UK time right now and we are going
all the way to midnight.
Yes. We have a speaker
on the hour every hour. So
make sure you strapped in. You've got your
water. You've got your tea. You've got your
coffee. You've put the kids I don't know
what you've done with them
but insha Allah
everything
is being recorded. It's all being live streamed.
You will be able to watch it back
if you don't manage to, you know stick
with everything.
But I would suggest definitely making sure that
you catch up on yesterday's talks and on
any talks that you missed today insha'Allah.
So first and foremost, I would just like
to
reiterate
why I decided to bring these amazing people
together
and present this program for you guys. And
that is that
you know SubhanAllah. I've mentioned this, before and
I'm gonna mention it again.
In the past few weeks, we've had, you
know, 2 very beloved members of our Muslim
community return to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
One was my brother Ismaeel Beaumont, Alayrah Hamel.
And other is Sheikh Mohammed Sharif, Alayr Hamel.
And the passing of these two men
who
were so known and loved by so many
because of their commitment to the well-being of
the community
is a reminder for us all.
I've certainly taken the reminder and I pray
every single one of you takes the reminder.
Because if Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has given
you a gift,
a gift of knowledge, a gift of wisdom,
a gift of the ability to touch people,
to communicate, to teach,
to guide, to comfort. If Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala has given you that gift, Wallahi it
is upon you to strive as much as
you can to share that gift before your
light goes out.
So really
the goal of this particular conversation is to
help us as Muslims
to have healthier, happier marriages.
Because we know that the foundation of the
family
is
is the marriage, right? It's the relationship between
the husband and the wife and how they
work together for the sake of Allah to
build a strong family. That's the basis of
our community and if anyone knows anything about
our community,
it is that we
are experiencing
serious problems in the marital home.
And when people are not happy in their
marriage,
it impacts everything.
So part of the marriage conversation which is
my podcast on my channel. If you haven't
subscribed then please do so right now. But
part of the marriage conversation and then the
continuing intimacy conversation
is around the idea that
if we can get our marriages right, if
we can learn and grow and evolve to
become better husbands and wives and spouses for
each other,
There is a refuge there
in this difficult world that we live in
where Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has made us
garments for each other.
We can strengthen each other. We can support
each other and we can be a solid
unit
that will inspire,
motivate and guide our own children.
And that has a ripple effect because they
go out into the world with what we've
taught them. And they establish their families with
what we've taught them. So
having unhappy marriages as the basis for a
community is just not good enough.
Having marriages where either the husband or the
wife feels
unfulfilled,
lonely,
ice isolated,
undesirable,
dissatisfied
is not acceptable.
That is not what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
has legislated marriage for. Con contrary to popular
belief, marriage is not just doom and gloom
and hardship and sacrifice.
There is joy. There should be joy. There
should be love. There should be pleasure. There
should be play. There should be exploration
and that's what this intimacy conversation is all
about. Please
while you're listening to this, if you hear
what I'm saying, if you're picking up what
I'm putting down, put a yes in the
chat. Okay. This is very important and I
want to go to our first guest tonight
to hear Amina, what do you think of
what I've said?
How important is it for us to have
that satisfaction within our homes? Or what impact
is the dissatisfaction
having?
Well, I think
I agree with everything that you said. And,
you know, there's just so so much, you
know, to converse in regards to this.
Because even just this week, I read a
really sad, my heart sank kind of article
that a Muslim woman living in the west
had written, an English speaking Muslim woman.
And she was practicing, and she was 29,
not married, never been in a relationship.
And her article was about being touched and
wanting to be held. Right? Now I didn't
agree with her article. You may have read
it. You may have seen it online. It
it kind of went around and did the
rounds like many of these things do.
And all it screamed out to me was,
you know, this lack or this inability to
show physical affection
where we can,
in front of our children.
Hugs, kisses, you know, all the things we
know are halal. And I know there's differences
of opinion out there for this kind of
thing, but having soft eyes when we're speaking
to our family members, you know, and doing
the love languages, acts of service for each
other, you know, and finding ways to communicate
even in a nonverbal way or even a
non, you know, physically intimate and sexual way
to illustrate whether it's the children or the
adults in the house, you know, especially the
spouse, when the when the 2 spouses are
not coming together
and tasting the sweetness that Alaris said, this
is the sweetness for you.
Everything else around it, you know, these anger,
resentment, frustration,
like you said, dissatisfaction.
And so I just couldn't agree more with
what you said, and it's so unpackable. Right?
It's like we like, you're gonna be here
all night.
Exactly. Well, that's why we're with you for
the next 45 minutes or so. Just to
just to unpack. So I think inshallah, you
know, let's have a little firstly introduction to
you
and the work that you do. Please tell
the audience a bit more about yourself and
the work that you do and then we
can go into sort of how you started
talking
about you know issues that
arise in Muslim marriages inshallah especially in the
bedroom.
Okay.
Yeah. So my name is Amina Jane O'Rourke
for those of you that don't know me.
And I've been a pastoral support companion, I
suppose, in many respects for about 10 years
now to Muslim women, both converts, reverts, and
born Muslim ladies.
And I was a public servant during that
time for most of it. And in 2019,
I left my public service role so that
I could become a private therapist
for predominantly Muslim women and not exclusively. You
know,
I really love serving Muslim women. So I'm
an emotional freedom techniques practitioner
and advanced tapping therapist.
And
what that actually is
is it helps
us funnel down on some of the things
that cause I mean, it can be used
for almost anything
in all honesty with you, but what I've
mainly used it it for with, the Muslim
women that I serve is funneling down around
the anxieties that affect our quality of life
every day. And, of course, they come in
many shapes
and sizes.
So,
of course, in a therapeutic space, you know,
in that therapeutic relationship, ladies talk to you
about a great many things. And I'm also
on a number of online platforms where ladies
can anonymously share whatever it is that they're
struggling with and things like that. And I
actually
was giving out
advice
to ladies who were sharing, you know, like,
marital frustrations, especially sexual frustrations in their relationships.
And the women in the group started referring
to me as the * therapist of the
group, which was not an intentional thing. I'm,
you know, just being super helpful. I'm like,
this should be common sense for most of
us. This is life skills. This is basically,
you know, female for tour. We should know
this. We should be raised with this kind
of thing. And quite often, we're not. And
I remember asking,
a sister a few months ago, actually. Well,
it it might have been last year, in
fact, so, Hannah, a lot of the time
is, like, you've reminded us going just so
fast.
And I remember saying to her, bless her,
you know, like, what kind of prep do
you ladies get before you, you know, get
married when you're having an arranged marriage? Or
I actually only discovered recently what a love
marriage was according to lots of heritage Muslim
community.
To the you know, we're still unpacking lots
of concepts around you know, social concepts around
Yeah. Like, how relationships establish and all that
kind of thing. And she said to me,
nothing. We kinda get sexual innuendos at The
Mendy. And I said, how old were you
when you got married? And she's like, 30.
And I was like, you had absolutely no
* education
at all? Like, we thought, yeah. And she
was like, no. And she was like, you
just can't really ask anybody about that. And
I was
I said, that's awful. And she she probably
was thinking, is it? And I didn't mean
it, you know, to, like I was shocked.
I was shocked. I was shocked that
as Muslims, we don't want other people, you
know, giving our children the * education because
there's lots of things in there that, you
know, don't correlate well with, you know, our
position on certain things and what we would
encourage at certain ages and without certain parameters
in place and all that kind of stuff.
And we know what those boundaries are. Most
of us do, I'm guessing, on here.
And but I thought, surely, we we must
have a halal alternative to educate our young
people and teach them that, actually, sort of
most of enjoyable things that you're going to
experience on the face of this earth. Alara's
decided this for you, and, you know, it's
even going to continue into gender. And, you
know, you know, that's the big part of
the gender experience also, you know, when we
get a taste of that here. And how
and I was just so flummoxed that
there's not even sexual health is even taking
care of yourself as a young lady. You
know, you can't even talk about labia or,
you know, clitoris or
and let's just renew our intention a while
ago even into mentioning those things because even
the terminology can cause people stress, shame, and
anxiety. So
we're here sincerely
seeking solution
for things that bring us into sacred spaces
with Allah.
Right? We're not doing this
for any other reason
than to connect with the humans he's placed
around us in divine decree so that we
can gain closeness to him and obedience to
him. Right?
So I meant to do that at the
beginning. I apologize.
So even talking about body parts according to
what they're actually called, you know, and being
able to, you know,
look after themselves, I was quite shocked.
And so many young heritage Muslims are actually
sexually active before they get married, quite often
living in the west, not all.
But even having a space to be able
to say, right. Okay. Unfortunately,
this mistake has happened, and having a safe
space to be able to process some of
that. And it all starts in the home,
like you said. Right? Because
not that I'm blaming parents for other people's
behavior. When young people grow up, they make
their own choices. However,
have we allowed emotional safe space for our
young people to grow in and ask the
awkward questions in the home? So they don't
need to go and Google it, or they
don't need to go and YouTube it, or
don't need to go on Instagram and look
at pages that because we all I know
that my social media is a beautifully positive
place because of the people I follow, but
I know not everybody is like that. It's,
you know, we are what we consume kind
of thing, even in visual content as we
know.
So So I I believe I've gone on
a little bit of a tangent there, my
dear Naima.
You're good. You're good. You're good.
I think we know what we're what I'm
getting from you is, you know,
part of what's brought you to this space.
And we have an episode guys. We have
an episode coming out of the marriage conversation,
which we recorded a while back. So that's
coming out. So make sure that you keep
an eye out for that. But,
okay.
I had an experience,
where I was invited to Huddersfield
to deliver a talk on
romance and marital intimacy, right, to a group
of Muslim women.
So the first thing that I asked was,
Who asked for this topic?
Right? Whose idea was it to have this
topic? Okay.
Did the sisters ask for this or did
the brothers say she needs to talk to
the sisters about marital intimacy?
Right?
And I don't know. We didn't get an
answer to that. But what did come out
was
the number of sisters who eventually
did share that
they're not satisfied.
That they wish somebody would talk to their
husbands, right? That they wish that their husbands
knew better
how to please them. You know, the importance
of pleasing them.
You know, that they didn't want to just
be touched in that context but they wanted
to be touched outside of that context as
well. So what have you found to be
the case
with because and and again why I ask
this is because of the idea that we
have culturally
that only men experience desire. Right? That only
men have an appetite and therefore only men
become frustrated. Only men are dissatisfied. Only men
want more.
But that's not quite the case, is it?
What have you found? That's a that is
like an absolute myth, isn't it? It really
is because,
you know, if we actually look into our
own, you know, historic literature
around, you know, like, the, you know, the
scholars of the past who would specifically focus
on this aspect of
living life as a Muslim. SubhanAllah, would you
believe that? You know, we had actual scholars
who focused on this, who spoke on this,
who wrote on this, and shared on this
topic alone,
a lot of those were women
and big advocates for
that, you know, like, the female sexual appetite
is you know,
I can't remember exactly,
you know, which scholar said it, which she
was like, you know, the female sexual appetite
is, like, 9 parts, and the and the
most man's appetite is 1.
And she goes into all the different levels
of why that's the case.
And the reason I'm mentioning that is because
it is a myth and it is a
taboo that, you know, women have you know,
women are not,
you know did not have a high *
drive or high libido and type of that
type of thing. And, of course, they absolutely
do. Allah created them that way,
and it's all part of like, even in
a lot of the literature I've read is
that even if you're not in the if
you're not if you're in a space of
or sexual intimacy, should I say, with your
husband and it's not exactly ticking all your
boxes, keep doing it anyway and even increase
the frequency of it because that's going to
allow for your intimacy to really grow. And
I think, like, the number one problem we
have in the relationships is the communication. Right?
So it's like,
this is, like it's awkward for him. It's
awkward for her. She wants to communicate, but
she doesn't wanna belittle him. She doesn't wanna
make him feel embarrassed, or she may have
got super frustrated once and said something she
regrets, and he's never forgotten it. And he
carries that baggage every time he goes into
intimacy sexual intimacy with her. And, of course,
it's the reparative work whether it's an argument
completely not related to sexual intimacy or not.
If we don't do
the emotional, intellectual,
reparative work between husband and wife, then we
can't be emotionally and spiritually
and sorry. Go ahead.
Oh, are you on mute?
We can't be emotionally and physically. Please finish.
I have a point that I wanted to
draw Sorry. Yeah. It's that, you know, like,
we really can't be that wholly
physically, emotionally,
spiritually,
intellectually,
you know, and sexually
vulnerable
in that space where we are gonna be
our most vulnerable if we're carrying a bit
of that baggage from before.
So
So there were 2 questions that came to
mind because one of the sisters well, several
of the sisters and this is something that
you may have encountered and guys let us
know in the chat if this resonates.
The difficulty of communicating
about bedroom matters
with husbands who typically are not great at
communication
in general.
But in this area, it's like a no
go. So firstly,
how can
how can a woman who's been married for
a while, not newlyweds and people like that.
But you know, you've been married. You've set
a pattern where we don't talk about this.
How can we break that pattern or disrupt
that pattern? That's my first question. And then
I'd love you to go into the reparative
work because it's my first time hearing that
expression and I'd love for you to give
the viewers a bit more on what do
you mean by repairing in that context.
Okay. So firstly, I think women who've been
married a while,
and often find it a struggle to communicate
are often the best placed people to broach
that conversation.
You know, Allah,
I
wish I had a more eloquent way to
say this right now because I wasn't prepping
for that. But
we know that Allah, you know, has blessed
women with, like, this incredible,
almost unconditional
good regard for a husband. To the point,
she's gonna stay with him. She's gonna stay
with him. She's gonna stay with him. She's
gonna stay with him. Right? And she's in
it for the long haul most of the
time.
She using open language,
and we forget how basic this can be.
Right? So if a woman was approaching a
husband and she wanted to, you know,
let him know that her needs weren't meet
being met, I would always suggest the conversation
starts
with her opening up to him
about
what what would he like?
Is there anything that's not happening for him?
Because when he finishes speaking,
she will then be able to say,
okay. It's my turn. Can I just share
something with you, something that I've noticed? And
I've been meaning to talk to you for
about about it for a while,
and I've not wanted to worry you about
it. I've not wanted you to to worry
about it or anything.
Using open language that usually starts without, you
know, it's not an interrogation. It's open language.
So when I say open language, you're the
link you're you're the literature lady here. So
you can probably do this better than I
can because I I do ad hoc or
and it almost always lands well. You know,
in the heat of the moment, if somebody
is to ask me a question in relation
to that,
what about using language like? So for example,
let's have a think.
Even using indirect language, open indirect language, like,
don't you know that I would love it
if you x? And I'm not talking about
being in the bedroom at that time. I'm
talking about the intellectual intimacy and the, yeah,
the intellectual and mental intimacy that starts during
the day. Sometimes, I would love it, you
know, spontaneity type of thing, you know, and
you start that thought process. And that gets
his brain thinking that what on earth is
she talking about? This is not
this is not what we do. And what
she's doing is initiating a change in, you
know, the behavior of that part of the
relationship.
And
it's about having the courage in that first
instance because almost
in a lot of situations, not almost always,
but in a lot of situations,
he will respond very positively to that because
truth is he's been wanting and longing for
that too, that kind of spontaneity
or, you know, even that playful talk during
the daylight hours or even first thing in
the morning, unexpected
times,
and always with smiles if we can bear
a smile. One of the things that I
wanted to mention as part of this, and
it's a bit of a disclaimer, is when
people have suffered sexual trauma, whether it's men
or women,
you're almost always I'm not aware of any
situations where that didn't need working through first
to be able to show up intimately
with your spouse, and that can feel very
scary,
you know, to men and women to do,
but it it can significantly block even communication
because of the the in enormous shame around
those things. So
even if you're not going to not going
to tell.
Even if you're not going to tell your
child
I can hear myself. I'm in
a. Even if we're not going to tell
our spouse about what's happened either during
young adulthood or during childhood,
I do highly recommend that people seek therapy
for that so that it doesn't show up
as,
something that blocks and causes some kind of
a block in your current relationship.
Because
trauma lots of people have been through trauma,
and there are ways and processes to process
that
and bring closure to that
and not carry it with us as we
go forward. So going back to, sorry, your
initial question,
open up the path of communication and being
really brave and vulnerable when that's not your
habit.
If you're in this relationship with this man
for the rest of your life, and this
is, like, straight to the sisters, obviously, I
know that this isn't necessarily a a sisters
only space at the moment, but
you have to brave that conversation. And, likewise,
if it's if if it's the men, somebody's
gotta be bold enough and brave enough to
say, do you know?
I am spending the rest of my life
with you.
I love you a lot.
You know? And by the way, I was
thinking about this. One of the indirect ways,
and I was gonna share this later, I
know other people have shared this, right,
probably throughout this conference. Yeah. I hope you're
allowed to do this. Yes. Yes. Yes. Even
asked you. Sorry.
I'm like, start a book club with your
partner, you know, with your husband.
Share this. Read through it. This is gonna
initiate a lot of intimacy just reading through
this this text in itself because it's
all about sexual intimacy, you know, in terms
of,
having difficult conversations. You can giggle together about
it. You can laugh and say, oh, I
could never have said that to you. And
did you read this paragraph?
You can almost do it. It doesn't have
to be
we need to strip the shame away from
it and the embarrassment
and,
you know, hold true space for each other.
I'm in this marriage with you, and I
am so happy to be here.
And one of the things I wanted us
to work on because we probably haven't had
the opportunity if we were married a few
years, if we've had a few children, or
we've both been working, or you've been working
a lot, I'd really like us both to
taste that sweetness that Alara has written for
us. And I know we both get tired.
If we use lots of we language instead
of I or you, it's less accusatory.
You know, like, you're not doing it kind
of thing. That. Yeah. I like that.
That's where I'm going with open language and
inviting language. It's we're in this together. You
know? It's not all you. It's not all
me. And you can proactively do
different things together without it all being on
you and all being on him.
And I'll be surprised. I haven't had anybody
come back to me after that suggestion and
tell me that that's not been a significant
step forward. Oh, no. Going in sexual intimacy
together. Because it goes through you know his
book. I'm sure you've read it.
It goes through lots of different aspects of
intimacy, emotional intimacy, and all those kind of
things as well. You know? So
Excellent. Excellent. So would you advise
people to have
more conversation? Whatever the conversation is. Right? Whether
it's there's not enough or it's not varied
enough or it's not kind of doing what
it needs to do. It's not giving what
needs to be gave,
outside of the bedroom.
Could you repeat that, my darling? Say that
again. Sorry. There's a dog barking outside and
No. Hoping that the AI is drowning it
out. Can you hear it?
Yeah. I can.
Do you recommend having those conversations outside of
the bedroom?
Yeah. I think if you yes. Because it
can be
almost it can put both people on the
spot,
and it can almost kill a moment where
you're about to be intimate with each other.
And it's like all of a sudden, there's
there's a blockade there. You know? Like, what
does she mean? But, also, there's a time
once you've had those initial conversations about because
Muslims well, I don't know whether it's just
Muslims or whether it's, like, the general public.
So, obviously, Muslims are my frame of reference
here,
is they tend to get very routine about
a lot of things including like, they call
it doing the deed, and I'm like,
don't call it doing the deed. So how
am I the deed. Is that what it's
called? Guys, put in the chat if that's
what you guys call it, doing the deed.
Interesting. Almost sounds like a chore. Right?
I'm like, well, I did not meet you
so it would feel like a chore. Okay.
But sis, hold on. Okay? I need to
push back on this. Okay? Because
the energy when especially wives talk about intimacy
for a lot of women, they do see
it like a chore.
What do we do about that?
Educate the younger men. I'm not sure we
can educate the older men.
And as the Gottman Institute did a really
in have you heard of the Gottman Institute?
Yep. So the Gottman Institute did a really
interesting research study on men and women, and
men
are more likely to keep the same behaviors
and try it with a different partner. And
I'm not talking about Zena here. I'm talking
about married gens. They get married again, do
exactly the same thing. Marriage ends, and they
carry on and they carry on. And this
is one of one of my only issues
with the polygynous conversation is, like, let's not
lose polygyny
as an avoidance behavior for not fixing up
what's wrong there.
You know? Because all of these women in
in your life
deserve all of the things that are failing
in the first. Right? You know, like
so
the re the reason I mentioned this is
the Gottman Institute is a really interesting survey,
and the men are not likely to change
their behaviors, but women
and they will go from part you know,
like, to wife to wife to wife, what
have you. And women are more likely to
change all of the behaviors to stay with
the husband
to make that marriage work than they are
to leave and just go on and do
the same
behaviors with somebody new, which is really interesting
because it it speaks volumes about
the emotional connection of women. Right? And I
think
if we just even look at that, that
kinda gives us a significant sign that, you
know, some men,
a lot of men, get to a stage
where they they almost consider themselves,
you know, like, no longer a student. And
we know that we're students till death. Right?
Like, this is
and culture and lots of other things will
dictate, you know, like, once you hit a
certain aid or once you hit a certain
status in your family and all these kind
of things, you no longer
need to learn. And the truth is,
when your children are growing up and moving
out doing their own thing, that's a brilliant
time to reignite your passion for each other.
It doesn't matter if you're a little bit
older than you were before. It's like you
bet you know, they still got a lot
of life to live
together.
And it's an ideal opportunity. We really
need men to have safe spaces to be
vulnerable, and I don't even think that should
always be with the women. They need safe
spaces, I think, sometimes with men because I
I think we can only understand to a
certain extent
what their male subjective reality is. Right? So
Yeah. And I think this space of vulnerability
with women, but I don't think we have,
an absolute right to all of their vulnerability.
You know? Like, we shouldn't get that squished
with lots of western concepts around, oh, you
should be 100% right. No. Men should have
their stuff, and women should have their you
know, men should have their spaces. Women should
have their spaces, and then they have the
space where they come together. So
I'm really sorry
because we've got I think we talked about
this when we spoke before. You've got the
post colonial hangover, if we could call it
that, a legacy,
the lost legacy
of educating
both men and women
to a place where they can live
fruitful,
Muslim thriving
lives. And we know the education system was
deconstructed with colonialism.
You know, they separated,
like, the secular subjects. Whereas before, in Islamic
education, throughout history of Islam, is all everything
leads you back to Allah. Algebra leads you
back to Allah. Astronomy leads you back to
Allah. And it was all segmented off. So
deen became compartmentalised,
almost, you know, in the sciences of deen
and separated.
And the reason I'm going off on that
tangent is because it is so important in
relation to like, we real this is our
wholesome reality.
Like, it we don't switch it off.
And that text in the middle of the
day, I can't wait to see you later.
You know? Or whether it's a note that
you leave in the morning or whether it's
just an act of service that lets that
person know, I'm going to see you tonight,
and we know exactly what for.
The playful aspects,
a little bit of a loss for fixing
people of a certain age because
the they're not really interested in the support
in all honesty with you. And if women
decide to stay with them, Alhamdulillah, Allah knows
the truth and Allah knows. And my advice
to those women is to work on
finding the deep emotional fulfillment
that you can get out of other aspects
of life.
And that might sound like I'm copping out
and spiritually bypassing. I'm absolutely not copping out
and spiritually bypassing. If women are not gonna
get divorced and they're gonna stay in those
marriages, we can't force other people to change,
can we? And if it feels like a
chore and they won't have those conversations or
they're not open to having those conversations,
we can't force them to have those conversations.
I'm sorry.
I need you to actually repeat that
because I know no. No. No. I'm serious
because I know how many times we have
sisters and brothers,
but for the sake of argument, let's say
sisters who come to these conferences, come to
these conversations,
and
they know that their husband's not gonna listen.
They know that he's not available for this
conversation. Right?
They learning
what's possible.
They may even be seeing what's possible by
hearing other Muslim women having the conversation
but they know
that's not what I have at home. I
know what I've got at home and it's
not this. So what you offered
as advice for sisters who may think this
is amazing, may think this is so true,
this is so good, it will be so
awesome but I know that my old man's
not for it. I need you to repeat
that again because it's it's not an insignificant
segment of the population. Let's be frank. Especially
women who have committed. They're in it for
the long haul. They're not about to divorce
especially for the sake of intimacy or something.
Please, sis, could you give that advice again?
I need everybody to pay attention to this,
and make sure that you're tagging your friends
and sending it to them, inshallah. But it
was really, really, really good.
So my advice was if you have decided
to stay for the long haul and you're
not you know, you don't want to make
a significant change in your spouse, like, as
in, like, you're not changing spouses because there's
no guarantee. You you know, we always say
that grass is greener speech, don't we? It's
not always the case.
You have to work on yourself to find
deep emotional fulfilment,
and that can be done in a variety
of different ways
so that you're getting your deep emotional
fulfillment outside of intimacy
because that matters and that will
in an extreme way affect your quality of
life and the joy you experience
every day.
And it almost to an extent,
you may never have that intimacy box ticked
if you've decided to stay in that short
decision. And Allah knows best.
May Allah reward you for all the good
reasons that you've stayed for. Because he's not
always necessarily bad men. They're just not very
good at that conversation, or they're not good
at that side of things,
and you want to stay with them anyway.
There are other ways that you can find
deep emotional fulfillment while you're here
before we get called back to Allah. And
I know that's not exactly verbatim what I
said a moment ago, Naima.
But,
It was in the flow, and he's like,
can you repeat that?
I'm not used to repeating it straight after
because it's
It was a download, but it's it's something
really, really important.
Because, you know, we can have a conversation
all day long about what to do about
dissatisfaction
in your marriage,
but, you know, at least giving people some
practical advice for how to cope in a
situation where they know that this that, you
know, that it's it's not gonna happen for
them. I think it's it's it's it's realistic
and it's helpful. So just to allow Kaye
on for that. Knowing that
most of the time
it's not you
It really isn't you
as the woman if you're prepared to have
those conversations and the man's not
You're being an you're being an inviter. You're
being a daye
You're inviting your husband back to Allah through
this conversation about intimacy. And if he doesn't
wanna take that invitation,
well, as we can't force it,
but it doesn't have to define us or
take anything away from us for the rest
of our lives.
We can find deep emotional I 100% believe
that when we find emotional fulfillment,
and this is not supposed to bypass any
of our sexual frustration, by the way,
it's valid and it's important and it can
feel paralyzing,
you know, depending on who it's going on
with and where and why.
But we can find deep emotional fulfilment even
without physical sexual intimacy in this life. It's
an important part of marriage, but it's not
all of marriage, you know,
I suppose is the highlighted point there. Yeah.
No. And it's a and that's a good
point. It's a good point. Okay. So I'm
really, really happy
that inshallah those of you who are watching,
who have that particular situation, hopefully
you can
think more about what sister Amina said.
So let's talk about those who potentially
either it's too bad physically. Right? What can
they do when the frustration
is manifesting itself physically?
And then what kind of, you know, kind
of communication can we be having to
tackle the dissatisfaction with regards to our spouses
inshallah. And also, if you have anything to
offer the men as well, I would really
appreciate that because I know we have a
lot of brothers who'd be watching this and,
you know, they may be very sexually frustrated
as well. You know, they may be in
a dead bedroom. They may be in, you
know, a sexist marriage. You know, it's not
just one way. So what advice do you
have for them on the emotional side and
on the physical side?
The advice, I think, for the men is
well, I yeah. In this equation that you've
just given me, I think it's much easier
for the men than it is for the
women sometimes
in the sense that
men,
brothers,
if your wife
and this is no you know, this is
not me accusing you. I'm not saying you
did something wrong. I'm saying
something in this world may have taught your
wife that she's not desirable, that she's not
sexy, that she's not ticking your boxes for
some reason, and that can really dampen her,
needs, her physical needs, her * drive. She
might not really be interested if she works
as well as being at home with the
children, has lots of chores and lots of,
you know, exhaustion and all that kind of
thing, if your wife feels
like you can't wait to see her and
I'm not saying,
you know, like, we see a lot on,
like, western media, you know,
with all of it doesn't have to be
all roses and I mean, roses are nice.
Get your wife roses.
But it's not roses every day. My point
is is that
if you let her know,
even once every few days
that you have deep desire for her and
it can be it doesn't have to be
you can let her know this without actually,
you know, initiating sexual activity with her. You
can walk past her in the house. You
can hold her. You can flirtatiously,
you know, touch her because she's halal for
you, and that Allah has made it this
way.
Away from children, obviously, and away from, any
other family members.
You can take advantage of opportunities
and catch her off guard like that. And
when she feels desired by you, even if
she's put weight on after she's had children,
even if she's got wonderful tiger marks from
having children also known as stretch marks, even
if, you know, like,
her * are different since she's been breastfeeding
the children and things like that.
Yeah. This just reminds me, actually, and I'm
going to share it very quickly. Umrah bin
Khattab, may Allah be pleased, with him, had
this companion come to him, and he was
Umar, may Allah be pleased, with him. His
wife was arguing with him at the time,
and the other companion approached. I can't remember
the other companion's name. Allah forgive me.
And, he starts walking back away from the
house because he can hear them having an
argument. And, says to him,
you know, what is it? What do you
need? And he said, well, I was coming
to you for a marriage advice, but I
heard your wife screaming, and I thought you've
got enough of your own problems. So I
thought I would leave. And he said, no.
No. No. Come and tell me what it
is that you need. And he said, why
are you letting your wife talk to to
you like that? We all know about Omar
Ibn Khasab. Right? We know, masha'Allah,
who, you know, like, a lot about his
life and everything and how respected and loved
he was by the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallamunallahu. And, And, he said, why do you
let your wife shout at you like that?
And he was like, you know, she sacrificed
her youth for me
to have the children, and she, you know,
saves me the cost of a wetness. She
saves me the cost of a cleaner. She
saves me the cost of a cook. She
saves me the cost of, like, all these
different servant folks that they would've had around
that time because that would've been a social
norm for them.
So, you know, sometimes she needs to let
some steam off, so I let her let
some steam off. And this is at the
time when he was the caliph, May Allah
be pleased with him. He's letting his wife
vent and shout. Okay?
Why am I highlighting that? Because he says
a really important point. She sacrifices
her youth
for me. So when we consider that we're
not going to be in our you know,
women
still need to feel desired, loved, longed for,
and invested in
Even as we grow in age, even as,
you know,
we we grow intellectually
and spiritually,
there's always that innate feeling of wanting to
be desired by the person who you've committed
to for the rest of your life. And
if you can make sure that your wife
feels desired, and you can do that in
a variety of ways, You can send her
flirtatious text messages when you're not together. You're
allowed to do that. It's halal. She's wife.
I would advocate doing things like that in
the modern digital
world. Use it to your advantage. You know?
Make promises about the evening when you get
home.
Talk about specific aspects of her and, you
know, like, how you love the way her
hair falls or, you know, the way the
sun shines on her eyes. All these little
things
help her know, oh, he really does deeply
love me. And when she feels,
you know, intellectually stimulated by you and emotionally
stimulated by you,
she's gonna be all for much more intimacy
most of the time. And I'm not saying,
you know, do it in a facetious way
or in an insincere way,
but practice it. Practice sharing those bits of
information with her. Compliment what a good mother
she is to your children.
Show her your appreciation.
Believe me, most of the time, a lady
* drive will go up when she's got
a husband that talks to her like that.
Okay? So and on the female side of
things
and it's all about what is balanced. Right?
So
I was talking about this the other day
to somebody else, and we live in a
hypersexualized
society,
obviously. We all know this. This is not
new news. Well, we certainly do in the
west. I know this is a global audience.
We're in the west.
There's billboards galore and bust
adverts everywhere with, you know, like, it's just
it's just it's everywhere,
in the adverts on TV and all that
kind of stuff.
So
if you find
like,
there's no one answer for, you know, like,
how much intimacy is fair. Right? So if
a husband has got really high * drive,
he does have to take into consideration if
his wife's working and she's got lots of
other responsibilities,
and she's trying to make herself available to
him,
you know, bearing in mind that she might
not be working out of choice. They might
be she might be working to relieve financial
hardship. So there has to be a balance
there about that.
And I was reading,
recently about,
there was, one of the other Sahaba. I
can't remember his name, Allah. Forgive me. And
he was with Umar ibn Khattab when he
was the caliph again.
And a lady came, and she was complaining
about her husband spending all of his time
either at work or in worship and not
spending time enough with her, and she said
I haven't got anything to thank him for,
basically, because he's never available for me as
my husband.
And, the other companion, may Allah be pleased,
with him. It was Kaab or something like
I might not be pronouncing his name right,
so Allah forgive me,
had said, you know,
if you've got 4 wives,
the other 3 nights are for Allah.
So if we even look at that very
basic
I know not everybody's got 4 wives or
2 or 3. So if in a monogamous
context, you're with each other every single night,
you know, at least once a week,
I think, is reasonable and fair, and this
is not a one rule fits all. Some
people like once a day. That's fine if
both parties were up once a day.
There are some ladies who once a day
is not enough for them.
So whether you're a man or a woman,
I encourage you,
if you're feeling sexually frustrated
in your marriage and you've communicated that and
your partner you know, your your wife or
your husband I I keep referring to partner
because I'm not sure which gender I'm talking
about in any given one moment because I'm
referring to both,
is
you need to consider fasting from the things
that arouse you when you're apart.
So if you're consuming a lot of Bollywood,
Nollywood, and Hollywood that's making you feel aroused
because we know that there's lots of arousing
material in there, we need to consider having
a visual fast from that. And I'm not
talking about, like,
every like, never watching it. I'm saying,
be vigilant about yourself, know yourself.
When I watched that particular program, it's like
there was something on,
last year called Bridgerton or something like that.
Right? Yes. Yes. We we we had another
sister, another speaker yesterday referencing
Bridgerton specifically,
because this came up you know with how
to deal with desire especially if you're single.
Right?
And
I love that you reiterated that point because
she said the same thing. She said be
mindful of what you're consuming.
So kind of soft * that's kind of
aimed at women like bridgerton and other things
like that. She actually mentioned it. Sorry, sis.
It's just amazing that this this, synergy, across,
across so many of the speakers. Go on.
No. Well, exactly. So, like, when you look
at, like,
we're all looking for something halal to watch
or something that's got rich, you know, visual
diversity in it. We're all drawn to it.
Right? Because it's about inclusion and feeling belonging
and all this kind of stuff. I got
registered on. I had to turn it off
in 10 minutes because let me tell you,
I would never watch something like that. And
I was like, oh my goodness. I said,
I can't leave all the ones that's online
I'm talking about watching this program.
And it's because I've not seen anything that
graphic for a long time.
A really long time. Like, be Muslim life,
you know, like, in movies and things like
that was the last time I saw something
like that.
So I was like, well, it's no wonder
people are feeling really sexually frustrated. They're consuming
that and even it's not just visual, you
know, like some of the songs that people
are listening to. Because we know lots of
Muslims listen to music.
And there are certain, you know, there's certain
music that people listen to and it will
be it will arouse them, you know, like,
my mom who's not Muslim, she used to
call it,
audio *. That's what she used to call
music. She's like, I don't know. Anybody can
put this thing on, you know, like, because
it just because of the content of it
and the way it is. And I know
some people listen to it and some people
don't. But
be vigilant
on what we're actually consuming, what we're and
even on Instagram and even on Facebook and
looking at, you know so, like, lots of
ladies will look at other ladies,
and they will compare themselves to whatever looks
like their live reality on Instagram. Like, and
there's lots of people posting couples' pictures of
like, you're not seeing lots of overt affection
and stuff like that, but there's always, on
the discover page, something that you definitely wouldn't
have clicked on before that's got a little
bit more nakedness or oversteps the mark a
little bit.
And, you know, we can't completely protect ourselves
for it in the digital world that we're
living in, but we can be aware that,
it's a bit of a trigger for me,
that.
And also certain foods, you know, that we
and I know you've had a speaker or
you're having a speaker later today.
The beautiful
new derma toddler. Yep. There are certain foods
that you may not even know are giving
your higher * drive than you realize. Like,
dates. We all love dates. They are a
hot food, and they're not meant for everybody.
Like, if you're a young person not married,
you probably shouldn't eat a load of dates.
Dates. Eat dates because they're good for you.
But
if you're finding that you're struggling with desire
as a single person, that's one of the
things you might wanna consider swapping for something
else because it's hot and it's not for
dizzy, I can't sweet and all that kind
of thing.
So for women who are physically really struggling,
they need to assess why.
Today, I was tagged in a post on,
a group that I'm on.
And the lady who was anonymous
said that she's * regularly even though she's
married, and she's watching * all the time,
and her husband doesn't know.
And she said no matter she said, like,
even once a week is definitely not enough
for
her. Her husband's always, throughout the whole marriage,
always had, you know, this that compatibility
factor
and being able to come together knowing that
you don't completely align on that and understanding
each other's cues for what they need. Like
men, who've got a a wife with a
high * drive, you need to be sympathetic
and empathetic
to that physically,
emotionally,
and spiritually because men aren't supposed to say
no to women any more than women are
supposed to say no to men. Your garments,
that's what it's about all about. Right? You
might have different narrations about that slightly.
But the truth is, if men have got,
you know, commusted the energy of the she
you're a protection from * and * for
a lot of women that are out there
who are resourcing to that. So I have
to say,
women should absolutely not be seen into *.
That's gonna initiate, you know, dopamine hits in
the brain,
and it's gonna alter the brain function, which
will become an addiction.
You know? And
I was so sad to see that post
because the truth is
when we find deep emotional fulfillment in our
own existence as independent
oh, not independent.
That's the wrong term. But as Muslim women,
because we're always, you know, either working together
or in a marriage or in a community
of some kind. When we find deep emotional
fulfillment in our existence with Allah,
You know, we can do without certain things
or tone certain things down. We really truly
can, and it takes analyzing
and
doing a lot of personal development work, which
I know you're passionate about as well. Like,
I love that you do the write your
story work. Absolutely love that because
it makes it about the women and their
journeys.
Validation and acceptance of every life experience is
being
that must have been, like, super hard and
what have you.
The reason why I'm mentioning that is because
women can find another focus.
And when we talk about
hypersexualization,
whether it's men or women, we have to
go back to balance. So it's if you
physically,
emotionally, mentally, or spiritually can't fulfill that need
every single day for your spouse, just have
an honest conversation saying, look, I don't want
you to be disappointed with me. We're gonna
need to compromise on this, and I wanna
make sure you're getting,
you know, what you need. And I wanna
make sure I'm getting what I need in
terms of, like, rest or whatever, you know,
whatever the other person's saying.
Communication,
you we've just gotta start speaking to each
other. It really is, but this information lies.
Yeah. I I completely hear that and that
message has come through loud and clear, sis,
in your talk, which is that, you know
this talk is all about you know tackling
sexual dissatisfaction and I think we can all
agree that communication
is you know, is our biggest tool.
So guys, I need you to listen back
to this,
because there were lots of gems.
The studious from amongst us will be taking
notes.
If you do take notes and you share
them on socials, please tag us. Sister Amina
Jane O'Rourke. She's Amina Jane O'Rourke on Instagram
and other platforms. Tag me so more people
can benefit.
Sis,
how can people get in touch with you?
How can they follow you? And is do
you have anything
at the moment available so that people can
work with you?
Yeah. So I
hold space for women only because of the
nature of the conversations that we have. Thank
you for that, Naima. And so
I started,
the harem,
which kind of
it's actually not all about concubinage, by the
way. But and and I had debunked that
straight away. I was like, the harem is
about, you know, like, women being haram for
all the other men except the ones that
they're not haram for. Right? So but, basically,
a female only safe space, where we hold
an intimacy conversation once a month, and we
work through our emotional hygiene at home to
improve our, you know, mental and emotional connection
and physical connection with, everybody around us
where we can build our relationships
and also emotional holidays, and I want parents
to have as many tools in the toolkit,
you know, to have
as
the holidays, and I want parents to have
as many tools in the toolkit, you know,
to have as peaceful time as possible.
But we always cover intimacy at least once
a month. It's the only workshop shop in
the membership space that isn't recorded due to
the sensitive nature of it. I want ladies
to feel like they can ask the awkward
questions.
So we work a lot around body image,
even initiating intimacy because
even though this topic's about sexual dissatisfaction, I'm
sure you know already, and you've probably got
a speaker for it. You know,
some women feel like they just can't let
go of that modesty aspect even with their
own husband in the bedroom, and we know
that that's the last place we need it
for. So
emotional processing really for the awkward conversations we've
talked about tonight.
Like, I do a lot of work with
that, building confidence and clarity,
around having difficult conversations with the people we
love, whether it's a husband or a, you
know, extended family or colleague
so that we can still honor ourselves in
our own experiences. That's with Shifa Healing Co.
That's the private practice I established.
This is it's only £15 a month
because I wanted as many people around the
world to be able to access it as
possible. And I also obviously work 1 to
1 in a therapeutic space with women as
well.
I
love that. Sister Amina Jane O'Rourke, thank you
so much for being part of the intimacy
conversation.
Guys please share your takeaways in the chat.
JazakAllah Khaydram for those who watch live. If
you watch this on the replay, please share
your thoughts and your takeaways and your moments
and do like the video,
comment on the page, subscribe and share the
video so that more people can benefit from
these amazing conversations.
Sis, you have been a light. You've been
a love. Thank you so much for being
here insha'Allah.
And guys go follow sister Amina Jane on
Instagram. We will see you again at 9
PM UK time for our next presentation. Tonight
we've got Gabriel Armani. Guys, we've got Bubba
Ali in the house. It's gonna be lit.
We've got Hale Banani at the end of
the night. So we've got a lot of
really amazing speakers lined up. Sis, JazakAllah Khayden.
We'll see you on the other side Insha'Allah.
Everyone.
YouTube.
Sis. Thank you so much. That was awesome.
I've muted myself.