Comedian, writer, and actor Tarek Ziad becomes the first Muslim man (and first queer man) to join the podcast. Like two besties at a slumber party, Salma and Tarek honestly and hilariously unravel everything their communities tell them to hide: queerness, shame, corporal punishment, disownment, religion, sexual repression, and the long, painful road toward loving yourself.

Tarek shares his journey growing up Berber (Amazigh) in a strict Moroccan household in Florida: from being punished for harmless physical contact with the opposite gender, to enduring violence and religious guilt, to getting into Yale, exploring his sexuality and cutting off his parents for his own survival, to eventually being disowned after coming out.

Salma opens up about calling child services on her abusive brother-in-law, losing access to her nephews, and the real reason her family cut her off (hint: it wasn’t the hijab - it was her sexuality). She also shares her father’s iconic line, “Let’s just agree the gays are going to hell,” and her equally iconic clapback.

Together they explore:

• how repression destroys entire generations
• Muslim queerness vs. white queerness
• whether you must abandon culture or family to live authentically
• what Islam actually says about sexuality
• the obsession with top/bottom labels
• vaginismus vs. bottoming fear
• indigenous Amazigh tattoo traditions
• breaking cycles of violence and shame
• finding chosen family and safer community
• the privilege and danger of “coming out” in MENA contexts

This episode is a portal: painful, funny, deeply human, and radically liberating.
It's a love letter to everyone raised on fear who is now trying to build a life rooted in truth.

This episode is dedicated to Salma’s 17 nieces and nephews - she loves you no matter what.

CREDITS:

Host & Creator: Salma Hindy
Executive Producer: Salma Hindy
Cinematographer: Patrick Samaha
Studio: 30 Irving Studios
Editor: Salma Hindy
Artwork: Rana Omar

© The Secret Sex Lives of Muslim Women, 2025

Instagram: @thesecretsexlivesofmuslimwomen

YouTube: @thesecretsexlivesofmuslimwomen

HOST'S INSTAGRAM: @salma.hindy

HOST'S TIKTOK: @salma.hindy

TW: SEXUAL, PHYSICAL & EMOTIONAL ABUSE

From the outside, Sara’s life looked like a dream: a respected gynecologist father, a big Gulf family, religious prestige, and the illusion of stability. Inside, it was a battlefield.

At five years old, she was molested by her father - the same man who later walked her down the aisle. Her childhood was chaos: screaming, bloody domestic fights, a mother beaten and belittled, and a nervous system that learned to survive before it ever felt safe.

Years later, after surviving addiction, rebellion, and trying to rebuild her life, Sara faced her second heartbreak: her siblings kicked her out, called her a “cunt,” turned their faces away from her, and left her estranged for seven years. Sara calls that day her crucifixion - the moment her entire family abandoned her.

We talk about: surviving childhood sexual abuse; watching violence erupt daily in her home; EMDR, trauma healing, and nervous system recovery; being disowned and estranged by her siblings; losing her mother to heartbreak after divorce; addiction, double lives, rebellion, survival; and raising a child while reparenting her own inner child.

Sara is the Arab daughter who refused to stay silent. The one reparenting her nervous system after a lifetime of flinching at yelling, and healing from the violence we were told to normalize.

CREDITS:

Host & Creator: Salma Hindy
Executive Producer: Salma Hindy
Editor: Salma Hindy
Artwork: Rana Omar

© The Secret Sex Lives of Muslim Women, 2025

Instagram: @thesecretsexlivesofmuslimwomen

YouTube: @thesecretsexlivesofmuslimwomen

HOST'S INSTAGRAM: @salma.hindy

HOST'S TIKTOK: @salma.hindy

Jasmine Sherni is the daughter of a Pakistani Muslim father and an Ashkenazi Jewish mother. Often bullied as a “fake Jew”, Jasmine is an adult performer who went viral after her first Bollywood p*rn scene, becoming the representation so many people had been waiting for. With over 34 million views on P*rnHub, Jasmine shares her journey from strict-dad households to BDSM stages, from ICU nursing to adult stardom, while navigating devastating loss - the sudden death of her older sister, her mother’s passing from cancer - and the complicated family dynamics of building a career her father chooses not to acknowledge.

This episode dives into grief, bisexuality, exclusion, and power. Jasmine tears up imagining what her late mother might say if she could see her now, and reflects on feeling unwelcome in her New Orleans Muslim community throughout childhood, the waves of “coming out,” and why sex work became the first place she truly belonged. Unapologetically bold, Jasmine’s story is proof that what daddy doesn’t know can become your greatest power. And that every woman in our lineage has brought us to this moment…so that we may do whatever the f*ck we want.

CREDITS:

Host & Creator: Salma Hindy
Executive Producer: Salma Hindy
Cinematographer: Ian Ritter
Studio: 30 Irving Studios
Editor: Salma Hindy
Artwork: Rana Omar

© The Secret Sex Lives of Muslim Women, 2025

Instagram: @thesecretsexlivesofmuslimwomen

YouTube: @thesecretsexlivesofmuslimwomen

HOST'S INSTAGRAM: @salma.hindy

HOST'S TIKTOK: @salma.hindy