Pakistani-American model Tehmeena Afzal has new pictures out today portraying her as a sexy Pakistani bride (scroll down for the gallery). I’m going to go ahead and say I support this.

She’s courting a little bit of controversy here—as we’ve seen on this site before, when Tehmeena brings up her heritage some people attack her for being a bad Pakistani or a bad Muslim.

Let’s get it straight, from an interview we did with her a year ago:

1. Tehmeena was born in the United States to Pakistani parents. Genetically, ethnically, heritage-wise, she’s full Pakistani but she was not born there.

2. Tehmeena’s parents were (or are) Muslim; Tehmeena is not. She does not claim to be Muslim or to live her life by the rules of Islam.

CORRECTION: To address a couple of the comments below, I asked Tehmeena about her relationship with Islam, because this is the sort of thing one should get right. And this is what she told me: “I am Muslim because that’s the religion I was raised with, but I don’t practice it strictly. I actually believe in all religions. They all stem from the same principles.” Girlwatcher regrets the error.

I look at these pictures and I see a beautiful woman paying a relatively respectful tribute to the her own culture. (Note I did not say “…her parents’ religion.”) She’s not burning the Koran, she’s not printing a cartoon of Allah—she’s just wearing a garment that (I assume, I’m not an expert) Pakistani women have been wearing for centuries. Are there big boobs in these pictures? You bet there are. There are big boobs in the world. It is a fact of life, and as the Bronx Beat ladies say, “Boobs feed babies.”

Haters gonna hate, of course. But I say to you, Tehmeena: Keep up the good work. You gotta be you and you can’t let other people tell you what to do (not in this country, anyway).

I also say to you, Tehmeena: Nice boobs.

(Henna/Mehndi/Jewelry by Sehers Designs. Clothing by Anarkali’s Khazana. Hair & Makeup by Looks by Jassi.)