13 March 2013

Sex and the Arab Spring

.... The common thread here is patriarchy. Arab regimes adopted the paternalistic style of authoritarianism found in the most traditional of Arab families and applied it on a national scale. Similarly with religion ... and sex is the point where all three meet.

In Arab societies, as Shereen El Feki points out in her new book, Sex and the Citadel, "the only widely accepted, socially acknowledged context for sex is state-registered, family-approved, religiously sanctioned matrimony". [www.al-bab.com] Read more