My family wants me to have an arranged marriage — but I’m in love with a woman

Welcome to How I Do It, the series in which we give you a seven-day sneak peek into the sex life of a stranger.

This week we hear from Rhea*, a 28-year-old bisexual journalist from New Delhi, India, who is in a monogamous relationship with her girlfriend of three years.

However, Rhea, who is Muslim, and her partner Anita*, who’s Hindu, have both agreed to conceal their sexuality and relationship status from their parents.

‘Our families are conservative and if they find out, they will cut ties with us,’ Rhea explains.

Rhea struggles to balance the wants and demands of her family with her desire to be free to love who she wants.

Despite having to keep their relationship secret, Rhea and Anita still have sex once or twice a week, and they’re both keen to get kinky and explore.

So without further ado, here’s how Rhea got on this week…

The following sex diary is, as you might imagine, not safe for work.

Monday

We have plans to see Anita’s friends today, but as I’m getting ready to go, my parents pressure me into going out for dinner with them.

Since my Anita and I are in the closet, they think of her as my close friend and don’t understand why I want to prioritise her. 

I ask Anita if she’ll be fine going on her own, but it blows up into an argument as she doesn’t like to do things without me. It’s both romantic and frustrating.

As the eldest daughter in a South Asian household, I’m a people pleaser and hate disappointing people. So instead, I convince my parents to take her out with us for dinner. It brightens up her mood because she loves eating out, but she always resents that she can’t even hold my hand around my family.

I know she’s been feeling disconnected lately because of how restricted our external circumstances make us feel. 

We finish dinner around 9 pm. I pretend I’m simply walking Anita back to hers, so we can spend some time alone — we live just a few houses away from each other. She lives on her own, which allows us sexual freedom, at the very least. Instead of fighting, we end up having sex. It’s more emotional. She wants to feel closer to me, something we aren’t allowed to be in public. 

Tuesday

I pretend to go for an early morning walk, but I’m actually sneaking to Anita’s. It’s a white lie I tell my family so they don’t disturb me. 

As soon as I’m inside her apartment I know we’re in for a hot morning session because of the way she grabs my hands and pulls me into the bedroom.

Soon, our clothes are off and she begins to lick my neck. She leaves me whimpering as she inserts her fingers. I bring her closer to me and whisper how she’s my wife and how I’m slutty just for her, which gets her turned on.

Suddenly, I get an idea. It’s our anniversary week and I’ve been brainstorming what to get her. Mid-sex I ask her to open her voice memos app, telling her not to say anything, especially not my name, and I press record.

We have to maintain privacy, especially with technology; we cannot risk getting caught, which is why we don’t record any revealing information.

She’s sitting between my legs and inserting her fingers deep, her other hand grabbing my left breast and playing with my nipple. Eventually, she comes on top of me, missionary style, and holds a vibrator between our vulvas. 

Four minutes later, I present her with a hot voice recording full of pleasurable moans, sighs, and the slapping of our bodies together. 

Wednesday

After a long day of remote working, Anita and I take a long walk in the evening. 

We’ve both agreed that coming out as lesbian, for her, and bisexual, for me, isn’t a possibility as it would alienate us from our families. Our parents are pressuring us to get an arranged marriage to men from our respective communities and it’s something we both struggle with every day.

The expiration date of our relationship hangs over our heads like a sword, which could drop at any moment. It makes us feel very anxious, restless and troubled. I don’t want us to end, but the other choice, of being without my family, is hard to take. 

Part and parcel of being in the closet is choosing to, eventually, live a traditional life. As a Muslim girl, with Indian roots, I would carry my parent’s heartbreak with me forever if I came out — it’s the same for Anita.

As crazy as it sounds, we’re dating on borrowed time. Except, it’s been three years and every day we fall deeper and deeper in love with each other. She even got my initial tattooed on her ring finger last year.

Whenever there’s a talk of a potential marriage, we both become extremely possessive of each other and our sex is hotter. It is much more needy and demanding. 

Thursday

Anita and I plan to have a sleepover tonight, so we avoid seeing each other during the day, to throw my parents off any suspicion. We don’t want them to think we are ‘too fond’ of each other.

My family has often had negative thoughts about bisexual and gay people, so I have to protect my privacy. They consider homosexuality haram — which means it’s a sin. We never discuss it, because they don’t even entertain the possibility of it.

As a bisexual woman, I am attracted to men, but I question how I can be married to a man and not be in love with him, when I’ve already fallen in love with Anita? It feels a lot like cheating.

Marrying anyone would purely be to appease my family, as I don’t even believe in the institution of it. I even received a marriage proposal a year ago. The first thing I said when my parents told me was, ‘God forbid’. Thankfully, he was based in Canada which gave me an excuse to turn him down, as I didn’t want to move there.

But religion plays such a big role in my life, and I’ve deepened my faith as I’ve got older. I came out to Allah, and that helped me embrace my sexuality more.I believe that if I’m honest with myself and my God, it doesn’t matter what other people think. I don’t have to be gay or Muslim, I can be gay and Muslim.

Tonight, because we can’t see each other, Anita and I send each other some naughty and flirty texts. The queer sex between us is more rooted into kinks and imaginary roleplays than positions itself, so we talk about what we will do the next time we see each other, like experimenting with light BDSM or doing role plays of dom and sub. 

I go to sleep a little horny. 

Friday

Today is our third anniversary and I’m so excited. Anita was the first girl I ever kissed. We’ve decided to recreate our first date where we will watch the film Carol, which centres on a love affair between two women.  

I tell my mother I’m staying with my ‘best friend’ and she gets irritated, but I get on with it because I’m not letting anything ruin today.

I often struggle with these dynamics and on bad days, this severely impacts my sex life. Forget orgasm, I can’t even find pleasure.

Around 8pm, I reach Anita’s flat. She’s decorated it beautifully for me. There’s chocolate strawberry cake, lights and flowers, and pink drinks. I get so overwhelmed that I’m almost about to kiss her, but she stops me and plays Dress, by Taylor Swift, in the background.

I cry because this is the song we had our first kiss to. I kiss her with all my burning passion. We make dinner and feed each other, and she licks my finger after every bite. After dinner, we put on a movie and start making out, slow and leisurely. 

I eventually turn around, sitting between her legs, trying to watch the movie. She brings out a vibrator and puts it on my right breast and her left hand is playing with my left nipple, pinching and fondling it.

We try to finish the movie but both of us are too distracted, so we quickly head to the bedroom from the living room. It’s raunchy.

My black Amazon-brought cheap lacy bodysuit is ripped from my body, with her on top of me, humping and grinding. She inserts her finger and I scream when she inserts three.

She kisses me and I can taste alcohol on her tongue. It’s funny, I’ve never tasted alcohol in my life because it’s against my religion, except when her tongue slips inside me, and then all bets are off.

Transgressing religious boundaries, I have realised, is a kink for both of us. We haven’t thought too deeply about the why, but outside of sex, religion is such a dominating force in our lives, and because our relationship is forbidden, it gives us a sense of excitement to explore it.

The night is intimate and close — exactly how I wanted to celebrate my anniversary with her. I don’t want another person, I just want her, for life.

Before I go to sleep, the grief of borrowed time sneaks up on me. I hold her tighter. 

Saturday

Anita and I get onto the topic of Ramadan, the holy month for Muslims. As well as fasting, I prefer not to have sex during Ramadan.

While sex outside of marriage is always forbidden in Islam — a rule I obviously ignore — for me, it is important to abstain during such an important time for Muslims.

Anita doesn’t like this though, and in the lead up will often ask me to change my mind. While Ramadan was a few months ago now, our dry month is still a sore point.

‘If you think husbands and wives can have sex after sunset,’ says Anita. ‘Why can’t we?’

I don’t have an answer. 

Sunday

Yesterday’s conversation has sat with me deeply because she was right; why couldn’t we be just like every other married couple?

I sit on it for a while and, by the evening, I tell my girlfriend on our daily walk: ‘Moving forward, we can have sex during Ramadan.’

Muslims won’t be celebrating Ramadan again until next year but still, she brings my hand into hers and smiles deeply — she’s ecstatic.

I know that my life is going to be slightly complicated forever. Choosing faith, family, feminism and queerness is riddled with difficulties. But I don’t consider my gorgeous wonderful and phenomenal partner a gift from Allah, then I am denying their favour.

We’re on borrowed time anyway. I’m not going to waste a second on conservative rules. If my God has to accept me, I will be accepted as a Queer Muslim, otherwise, I’ll go where the other gays are in the afterlife.

While we are never going to come out to our parents, as long as we’re together, I’m determined that we’ll be happy and guilt-free. 

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