Something about Durban

I want to write about Paris. But this reminds me that I didn't write about Durban. So I'm going to try and begin with that.

Durban Durban. I was so stressed out, as I'm usually when I travel these days. It was a long fight to get there. I basically got outed in the process. 

The whole luggage thing destroyed the trip. I was stressed about clothing and money the whole time. This took away from my planning energy. I felt sapped.

But let's try to remember the good times. Meeting the beautiful Moroccan, Tunisian and Lebanese friends was very heart warming. I have to visit Morocco soon. I think it will replenish my energy and full my desire to be in a country that gives me life. 

That night I spend with Zak. That hot Armenian guy. The guy that tried to hook me up from in front of the Frenchies hotel. When I made friends with the Nigerian, and got hooked up by another just in front of him. That whole police station incident. Dancing to the beats of afrohouse while completely stoned. I think I even masturbated in the toilet. That kiss with the trans guy. Making out with the beautiful woman. Grinding with the south African girl at the bar. Evading sex with the frenchies. Having my feet massaged at the positive lounge. Meeting the trans mama and her girls. Other short endearing encounters during the conference. Bussy and the south African young boy. 

On a deeper level, some reflections arose. Being there is a strong reminder of the privilege and protections we have living here. As positives and otherwise. I remember being mad at not being able to take the metro, and how that reminded me quickly of how spoiled I got.  

The energy of being openly positive gave me the impulse to disclose to two Berliner friends. Maybe it was the weed I smoked though. 

The off experiences with Bob and Sadiq made me feel that being with a person of color is not everything. Maybe I am saying that because of how I felt about Gianmarco and that I was trying to convince myself that it can work. It's true that being with a nonwhite is not enough.

Istanbul healing

Getting fucked by the Capricorn jewish guy. It was unexpected. He had spent all those night sleeping naked next to me. for no obvious reasons he said he wants to give me pleasure, to make me feel treated. He wanted to give me a hammam experience. He had just been there and felt fetishized. It turned him on. We disagree on that part. 

the last three guys who made a shot at my ass have something in common. They're all jewish. I don’t know what this means.

To my ever increasing surprise, he went on and fucked me. it healed me. I hadn’t been fucked for such a long time. He even made me come twice. It was good to feel desired. To make me feel that my ass matters. My ass attracts and gives pleasure.

That Syrian picked me. yes maybe he's desperate. Maybe they all try to look more glamorous than they really are. Maybe that's why they try to look glamorous in the first place. To camouflage their insecurities. 

I had met him the night before. He hardly showed attention. Even after I tried to impress him by my egyptianness. The next night we run into each other. We're forced to kiss each other. He gives it more heart than I expected him to.

 i sucked syrian dick on the floor of that turkish club?

i think it was good because i was so surprised it happened. like i saw the guy the previous night and he didn't pay me any attention. then i see him again and i hit on him and he responds hard. and because i was finally flirting with another arab. and because i got chosen by an arab. im so traumatized by sexual politics of germany. so an arab guy flirting with me warms my heart. i should open myself to that more. Seek it more. i really think that can improve my sexuality, because now i have libido problems and i know it's because of white gays/gaze, but it came back to me in Istanbul, also in athens

 actually this realization is scary

like i feel fetishized with him and that turns me .but with a syrian guy im not viciously fetishized and it's not like all insecurities will be gone but that's a major one, but it's hurts me to seee arabs here running after whites. it triggers me. you know this was even written about in black feminist thought? the trauma of black women that black men choose white women

the calling

Am I finding my calling? I write this from below the dark layers of the dark beast. Would I ever forget that quote from yesterday's film? I dragged him to come with me. he warned me it will depress me. he was right. he was talking about his interferon experience, but somehow I related. He describes how everything changes on the drug. He feels he now needs an effort to do anything. To breathe. To move his arm. The will is there but the energy not.

Let's go back to the calling. I am not sure why I went there. I should preserve my energy more. That's a recent resolution. It was about refugees and harendt and other stuff. I listened and when I spoke I wasn’t listened to. I wasn’t seen. It's a familiar dynamics. I just didn't expect it to happen again in that context. I run into my Syrian friend, we are happy to see each other. The performance begins. The boys are stirring my emotions. The lyrics move my tears. Many tears. My friend hugs me, supports me. but she cracks too, especially when she thought about her father. 

One of them steal our eyes and our hearts. His eyes shine. He feels his place in the world. He knows he's beautiful. I want to go back after the break but I don't. I decide that's it, and that it's better to hang out with my friend and smoke and unterhalt. On my way out, three of them are on their way too. We walk together and talk. One of them turns me crazy. He awakened what I thought I lost forever. The changes were not only emotional but also physical. We exchange numbers and I know this would get me in trouble. But I go for it, I can't but go for it. 

The shocking realization because of this encounter haunts me. I am power driven. Just like white people. I enjoy the rush, the exploitation and invasion of less powerful people. I am not joy driven like some of my friends. And that's why I am miserable here and that's why I am feeling better since my power is coming back again. I am like them which means I should understand them which means I should forgive them. 

But this is my doom. That's the important thing. He's my doom.

one for my libido

Thos ones goes to my libido.

You sank into my life pretty late. I remember and I know that the act of remembering is always tricky, I remember that my early sexual encounters did not come out of lust. They stemmed from a desire to connect. To validate my desire to be with a man. They were mostly forced on me and I felt that I had to follow suit. I remember fantasizing about my first crushes was mostly emotional rather than sexual. 

Even the loss of my anal sex virginity was an act of pragmatism. A possible revolt against my younger optimism and idealism. As if virginity is something that had to be rid of, regardless of who takes it. I did busy myself with how to achieve pleasure but my relationship with pleasure wasn't strong, was rather mechanical. 

I remember there was another moment of revolt. One that centered my body and my pleasure. I remember reading Raoof Mas3ad and being engrossed by his portrayal of sexuality. I did seek pleasure and that allowed my libido to surface. To take hold. 

I had a project to queer my sexuality. I never experimented with female bodies, but I tried to break the prevailing notions of gay sex. Those influenced by body shaming, ableism, racism and classism. This process of liberation took dangerous turns at moments. I wanted dangerous sex. I found freedom in that. In having sex in a forsaken train carriage off a railway station, with a impending risk of being arrested or even killed. Libido is a will to life but there was probably also an underlying desire to die. However, I call these days 'days of freedom'. 

After my escape, I realized that my sexuality is taking a different turn. One where my sexuality is being limited by racism and fetishization. I realized that I had little sex with whites bodies and that now most of the sex advances come from white men. Sex began to lose its allure.

It's very hard though to diagnose my loss of libido. My escape has influenced my sexuality in various ways. But also affected the whole of me. Old traumas and new ones, and ones that are being made everyday. The stresses that I encounter. Is it my depression making me lose you? Is it my medication? Is it the weather? Is it the kind of people I sleep with? Is it the kind of sex that I have now? 

What do I do to get you back? Leave this country? Get off medications? Put myself at risk again? Stay with one guy hoping that I would get it up with him every time he initiates sex?

I can say that I am at a point where I am just going on saying to myself that I can just do without you. That it's okay to let you go. I say to myself, that losing you opens the door for other ways or relating to people, maybe saves some drama, or saves my sexual health. Part of me resists. I want you because I want the thrill back. I want you because I want to enjoy the chase.  

Should I fight for you or let you go?

my depression

You and I need to talk. I need to figure out my relationship with you. I am in touch with my feelings right? I interrogate and analyze my behavior constantly. No wonder I think lowly of my psychologist, or psycholotherapy in general. What more can it provide? I do enough interospection all the time. 

I know and recognize that you now have a hold over myself. You cloud my days with this huge grey cloud. You darken my days. You steal energy, desire and pleasure out of my life. I do think about death more often. Even though I don't always crave an exit but there are times when I do want it to switch off, or rather get switched off, sometimes by me. 

I wonder when did you take it away from me? I know a certain deep seated fear entered my life when I was raped. Something was broken even though I'm not sure what. This terrible shake that still captures me when I think of it sometimes. Or when I'm triggered by everyday consumption. But did it start before that? Or after? What did listening to the stories of rape survivors who are also refugees do to me? Did it make me angry, cynical and detached? Yes. 

Was that you back then? Or was it your hands trying to snatch me into your darkness?

the blows in my friendships were strong blows, and the subsequent phase of being addicted to dangerous sex was probably an aftereffect. Maybe I was trying to prove that I'm strong again. 

That I survived the rape. And in the process exposing myself to more rape, violence and theft. Oh and also HIV.

I think a lot about that time in my life after I became positive and my goodbye time to Cairo, to the place I called home, that I had given up on giving up on. Why do I think at that time The knowledge of departure tore me. Is it a certain resilience that I miss? i miss a kind of resolve and determination I felt. That my next mission was to save my life, and to save my family from the pain of having me arrested or exposed. A certain humor I armed myself with against the horrors of the world.

It was my arrival and lack of arrival that broke my spirit. Being attached to a body hated, regulated and wished dead. I lost my confidence and my sexual desire. I lost the ability to care for myself. To find peace in my skin.

Why do you sink in now? Is it because the struggle to survive back in my home was hiding you? Are you a privileged problem? I can't claim so. Maybe something did break.

I cry and I have nightmares. I struggle to do normal activities. I don't enjoy the things I used to like. I am desperate for understanding. I'm desperate to explain my layers of pain. I'm so exhausted. I wish we can build a better relationship with each other. One that is based on understanding and appreciation. Should I be grateful for you for something? Perhaps you help me too. Perhaps you help me take a break. Or center myself. Or something from those gratitude selfhelp books. My friend said that it is a struggle to 'succeed' in white countries. 

That we need to make it. At this point, I'm not sure what success means, probably surviving. To survive you.