Sexuality in the Arab World

Samir Khalaf, John Gagnon, Samir Khalaf, John Gagnon

• Publisher: Saqi Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780863564871
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Arab cultural discourse has been slow to respond to changing sexual behaviour. The contributors to this collection pick up the slack, ranging across such disciplines as literature, history, sociology and psychology. Is Damascus the 'chastity capital' of the Middle East, where perceptions of wealth and class fuel female rivalries? How do gay men cruise in Beirut? How do young women in Tunis cope with both social pressures to become thin and family pressures to gain weight? What do Lebanese creative-writing students write about sexual practices versus public behaviour? The fresh, compelling research topi covered include masculinity and migration; colonialism and sexual health; fantasy and violence; and domestic workers and sexual tensions. 'Other people's sex lives have always been a source of fascination, and nowhere more so than in the Middle East... Ground-breaking.' New Statesman

Breaking the Silence: What AUB Students Really Think about Sex

Roseanne Saad Khalaf

When I informed my creative writing classes that a number of our seminars would focus on the topic of sex, the initial reaction was silence followed by utter disbelief. ‘Wow!’ exclaimed one enthusiastic male student. ‘Just what every guy dreams of but can’t talk about openly.’ Next a rather amusing incident occurred when two animated young women attempted to speak at the same time but managed only to produce strange, inaudible sounds. Unfortunately the laughter and commotion that ensued made it impossible for me to rescue them from this embarrassing situation. Later that afternoon, in the quiet calm of my office, Layla let drop the white veil that covered her mouth while Samar adjusted her tongue rings. As they engaged in articulate conversation I marvelled at how two female students, one traditional, the other postmodern, had eagerly attempted to express their views only to be hindered by contrasting differences in attire and adornment that ultimately rendered them silent.

Ironically, both have been ‘deformed’ and made speechless by the very values they adhere to. In a most visible sense, they also epitomize the dissonant normative expectations and lifestyles that continue to polarize certain segments of Lebanese society. That both are seeking an ‘American’ liberal education and happen to be in the same creative writing seminar makes the setting all the more compelling. The outwardly timid and reserved veiled student, along with her dauntless and liberated cohort, who flaunts the rings on her tongue and other parts of her sparsely dressed body as ‘emblems of honour’ and daring, represent extreme modes of adaptation which are manifest elsewhere in the Arab world.

Contrived as it may seem, a classroom setting devoted to creative writing offers a unique and discerning opportunity to explore sensitive issues related to sexuality, and allows a better understanding of how a group of intelligent students are groping to forge a meaningful and coherent sexual ideology. However, working critically with the writer’s personal experience to relocate it to the classroom in a way that allows for a more meaningful engagement with experience can be immensely challenging.¹ In my study, the task became even more daunting because the topic of sex requires venturing into sensitive, often forbidden territory. To craft sexual narratives, students had to enter unmapped terrain as well as stretch language beyond neutral communication in order to express ideas and inhabit spaces not normally explored in the classroom. Delving into highly private realms of experience often required the use of sexually explicit language that ran the risk of exceeding the comfort zone of certain students and testing their threshold of tolerance. At times we even faced a ‘linguistic void’, ostensibly because students have not yet developed a comfortable or adequate way of expressing their views, nor have they found acceptable language to use in a classroom setting. Initially, it was somewhat difficult to generate natural rapport since language had to be carefully negotiated. Luckily students were quick to overcome the barriers and, to my delight, out of the closet tumbled amazing stories. Fortunately the rush of tales moved beyond the local and segmental allegiances to assume wider significance.

Not surprisingly, the questionnaire I administered in the early stages of this experimental study (see Appendix) revealed the majority of students to be multilingual, multicultural, highly mobile and diverse. Many are border crossers by virtue of having lived, together with their families, in a number of countries to escape the atrocities of the Lebanese civil war that ravaged the country for nearly two decades. Today, students struggle to reconcile the romantic and nostalgic Lebanese narratives told to them by their parents with the realities of a postwar society. What they are witnessing instead is a country in limbo populated with self-serving politicians and a dysfunctional government that remains, for various reasons, incapable of addressing any of the underlying issues and tensions that instigated the war in the first place. Predictably, whatever reserves of optimism and determination students possess are quickly depleted in the wake of countless daily obstacles they encounter. Unless they have the good fortune of joining a family business, decent jobs remain scarce, salaries low and the future highly uncertain thanks to regional political instability. Given this dire situation, it is little wonder that students are attracted to rampant consumer culture and quick fixes inevitably ushered in by the trappings of globalism. Postwar Lebanese society has instilled an insatiable desire to make up for lost time. This impetuous hankering for the ‘good life’, to enjoy the moment and not look back, is a desperate attempt to erase all traces of a violent past. As one perceptive student remarked, ‘It seems that war and violence are never far away.’ When peaceful times are perceived as nothing more than brief interludes, it is easy to comprehend why my students behave the way they do.

Creating a space where issues regarding sex can be openly debated, discussed and written about freely offered students an opportunity to give voice to their views on sexuality. By delving into such seemingly private zones of personal autonomy, they acquired an expansive sense of control and empowerment. As a result, students began to assume some of the enabling attributes of a diminutive ‘public sphere’ and/or ‘third spaces’.²

This was only possible because our contact zone remained protected from the threatening outside gaze by the safety net of a classroom setting where critical exchanges that deal with difference served primarily to broaden awareness. The transformative power of discourse and personal writing was evident right from the beginning when repeatedly students expressed their desire to be change agents with regard to matters of sex. Yet they were acutely aware that the acceptance of diversity in our created ‘third space’ was a distant cry from their real and lived environment. Here there was no posturing for they were not being judged in any way. Whatever diverse practices and attitudes they revealed were welcome in our shared arena and, perhaps even more important, the information remained entirely within their control. The ability to engage in text creation under a safety net served to increase and heighten awareness, to unsettle and transform fixed, often rigid ways of seeing. In the end, the acceptance of difference gave new shape and meaning to their initial views on sexuality that developed into a sense, real or imagined, of emp...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Living with Dissonant Sexual Codes: Samir Khalaf
• States, Cultures, Colonies and Globalization: A Story of Sex Research: John H. Gagnon
• Sexuality, Health and Colonialism in Postwar 1860 Beirut: Jens Hanssen
• Like Pure Gold: Sexuality and Honour amongst Lebanese Emigrants, 1890–1920: Akram F. Khater
• Migration, Marginalized Masculinity and Dephallicization: A Lebanese Villager’s Experience: Ghassan Hage
• Sexuality and the Servant: An Exploration of Arab Images of the Sexuality of Domestic Maids Living in the Household: Ray Jureidini
• Chastity Capital: Hierarchy and Distinction in Damascus: Christa Salamandra
• In the Eye of Which Beholder? Beauty, Body Image and Sexuality in Contemporary Tunisia: Angel M. Foster
• Breaking the Silence: What AUB Students Really Think about Sex: Roseanne Saad Khalaf
• Creating Queer Space in Beirut: Sofian Merabet
• Transition Beirut: Gay Identities, Lived Realties: Jared McCormick
• Sacred Prey and Fatal Mirror: The Female Body Written by Amjad Nasir and ‘Abduh Wazin: em>As‘ad E. Khairallah
• Sexuality, Fantasy and Violence in Lebanon’s Postwar Novel: Maher Jarrar
• Postsccript and Acknowledgments: Samir Khalaf
• Biographical Notes
• Index
• Copyright