Six pairs of black eyes staring at me
Or rather, next to the purple stick in my hand.
"This is a vibrator," I answered in English, racking my brains for the correct Arabic words.
I thought of "One thing that can move quickly", but this also applies to manual mixers, and I decided to use my native language to reduce my feeling of getting more and more chaotic in the room.
One of the women curled up in a van next to me and began to unwrap her headscarf, a cluster of black hair falling from her back, and she carefully set the headscarf aside.
"What does it do? " she asked.
"Well, it vibrates," I added, taking a sip of mint tea, taking a bite of syrupy baklava and getting some time for myself before inevitably joining again"But why?
"How did I show sex toys in the morning of the coffee of a housewife in Cairo, which is a long story.
Over the last five years, I 've traveled in the Arab region asking people questions about sex: what they do, what they don't do, what they think, and why.
From your point of view, it may sound like a dream job or a very questionable career.
It's totally another thing for me: sex is the lens I investigate the past and present somewhere in the world, a place that has written a lot but is still rarely understood.
Now, I agree with you that sex seems to be a strange choice, because since the beginning of this decade, there has been a scene of popular resistance everywhere in the Arab world, this makes some of the most entrenched regimes in the region
First in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen
The rest are shaking.
However, some observers even believe that young sexual energy was the first source of protest.
I'm not sure.
Although I often hear Egyptians say their fellow citizens have spent 99.
On the exciting days of early 2011, they spent 9% of their time thinking about sex, and having sex once seemed to be the last thing in people's minds.
However, I do not believe that this is completely invisible.
Sexual Attitudes and sexuality are closely related in religion, tradition, culture, politics and economy.
They are part of sex.
That is, behavior and everything that comes with it, including gender roles and identities, sexual orientation, happiness, intimacy, pornography and reproduction.
So sex is a mirror of the conditions that lead to these uprisings, and it will be a measure of hard-
Reform has been won in the next few years.
In his reflection on the history of the West, the French philosopher Michel Fuke described sex as "a particularly intensive turning point in power relations: between men and women, between young people and the elderly, parents and future generations, teachers and students, pastors and lay people, governments and people.
"The same is true in the Arab world: if you really want to know someone, start with their bedroom.
If it weren't for the events of September 11, 2001, I might never have opened that door.
When the world changes, I work in The Economist.
Before I became a journalist, I had been trained by immunologists, and I was in the health and science field, far from the great political debate at that time.
In those gaps, I had the opportunity to sit down and watch my colleagues work to solve the complex problems in the Arab region.
I saw their faith in Britain.
In the early days of the war in Iraq, the strength and prosperity of the United States gradually turned into doubt and then confusion.
Why are Iraqis not in a hurry to embrace this new world order?
Why do they rarely follow the scripts of Washington and London?
Why do they behave in the opposite way to Western expectations?
In short, what makes them tick?
For me, this is not a question of geopolitics or anthropology;
This is a matter of personal identity.
The Arab world is in my blood: My father is an Egyptian, and through him my family roots extend from concrete in Cairo to cotton fields deep in the Nile Delta.
My mother is from a green valley far away.
A former mining village in South Wales
It turned me into half an Egyptian, though most people in the Arab region shook their heads when I told them about it.
This is not "half" for them ";
Because my father is completely Egyptian, so am I.
I am also a Muslim because he is a Muslim.
My mother's family is a Christian: her father is a Baptist priest, and her brother became a pastor of the Welsh church in a leap forward in the upward flow of the Anglican Church.
But my mother converted to Islam because she married my father.
She was not obliged to do so;
Muslim men are free to marry ahl al
Kitab, or someone on the book.
They include Jews and Christians.
Being a Muslim is a matter of faith, not coercion, for my mother.
I was born in the UK and grew up in Canada, a long time ago "Muslim in the West" was a topic.
There are several people in our school (
I grew up in a university town near Toronto)
But I never thought about it.
Then I was added to the Islamic icing on the Western way of life: my only memorial was to stay away from pork and alcohol and learn al-Fatiha —
The opening of the Quran-
My parents asked me to recite it before our very British Sunday lunch.
As the only Muslim in the neighborhood, we were always the first to hang up Christmas lights, and there was never a pile of chocolate eggs on Easter.
As for Egypt, every year we visit my grandmother, Nouna azizza, and a large group of aunts, uncles and cousins.
We are outsiders: My mother is the only Western woman (
Khawagayya, Arabic, Egypt)
In my childhood, we were the only people living outside Egypt.
So between the prestige of my father as the eldest son and my own foreign descent, I was bathed in the spotlight.
My Nuna apartment is a shrine to a small branch of our exile family;
In the plastic plants of petit point, the playful Shepherd and the shy maiden, our pictures are squeezed on the coffee table and the console, and their delicate gold-plated legs seem to be with such a great maternal love
As I grew up, I began to love Egypt and respect Islam, but I never thought about going beyond the surface.
Back in Canada, many of my father's Egyptian friends questioned his decision not to raise his only child in strict accordance with his faith.
The Muslim prayer ceremony salat did not teach me and I did not learn Arabic.
This is not because my father was not convicted.
He is a devout Muslim, praying five times a day, reciting the Quran from memory every morning;
He was a Haji and made a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.
During Ramadan, he strictly abides by fasting and never pays zakat or alms for the poor.
But my father saw his friends impose Islam and their own education in Arabia on their children.
Especially their daughter.
It's like a vaccine against Western diseases.
However, more often than not, these parents see it as dangerous, and their children see it as an opportunity for many to give up their religious and cultural heritage, in their view, this heritage is too powerful a drug.
On the other hand, my parents gave me freedom to come to my religion and my roots in my own way and time.
That moment was after September 11.
Like many people across the east and west, I was forced to study my origins carefully.
It's unusual for me to choose as my lens.
But that's understandable given my background.
Part of my work at The Economist is to write articles on HIV, including the grim task of reporting the status of the global epidemic.
The United Nations agency responsible for tracking the disease, the Aids programme, publishes a large number of daunting latest statistics every year.
I have not been concerned about a large number of people living with HIV.
Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, but small infections in the Arab region, where the prevalence of infections is only a small part of other regions.
In an era of mass immigration and instant access to services, how can a region of the world maintain an immunization against HIV?
Is it possible that people in the Arab region are not engaged in dangerous acts at all?
No shared needles or contaminated blood supply or unsafe sex?
When I started asking questions, I began to fall into the gap between the public image and the private reality reflected in the official statistics.
When many people were busy assuring me that HIV was not and could not be a problem elsewhere in the Arab world, I met with all the infected families, and heard more and more urgent requests from those who work silently, asking them to stop the spread of the epidemic.
The more I look at it, the more I realize that the main gap between appearance and reality is sex: the collective is unwilling to face any act contrary to the ideal of marriage, resistance supported by religious interpretation and social customs.
In a broad sense, this sexual climate looks like the West at the edge of the sexual revolution.
Many of the potential forces driving change in Europe and the United States exist in the modern Arab world, even if only in the embryonic stage: the struggle for democracy and individual rights;
The rapid development of the city and the increasing tension in the family structure have relaxed the community's control over private behavior;
A large number of young people, whose influence and attitude are different from those of their parents;
Transformation of the role of women;
Transforming Sex into consumer goods through economic expansion and liberalization.
In addition to this, through the media and immigration, more exposure to the sexual concept of the rest of the world.
All of this raises the question: will there be a sexual adjustment next as political unrest sweeps across the region?
Due to their essential differences in history, religion and culture, the West cannot guide the transformation of the Arab world.
Development is a journey, not a race, and different societies take different paths.
However, some destinations are more popular than others.
I believe that a society that allows people to make their own choices and realize their sexual potential provides them with the education, tools and opportunities to do so, respecting the rights of others in this process is a better place for it.
I do not believe that this is fundamentally incompatible with the social values of the Arab world, which is once again open to all aspects of human sexuality and possibly again.
There is also no need for this irreparable conflict with the dominant faith in the region: it is through their interpretation of Islam that many Muslims arm themselves and their religion.
The book tells the story of those who try to break free: Researchers who dare to explore the heart of sex;
Scholars who re-interpret the current traditional text that limits the choice;
A lawyer who struggles for fairer legislation;
A doctor who attempts to mitigate physical and psychological effects;
There are religious leaders who have the courage to preach tolerance, who have spoken here about the curse;
Activists trying to ensure sexual safety on the street;
Writers and filmmakers who challenge the limits of expression;
Bloggers who are creating new spaces for public debate.
This is also the story of those who oppose them;
After decades of stagnation, the changing political landscape in the Arab region is opening up new opportunities for the two regions.
From sex and Castle: A close life in the Changing Arab World
Shereen El Feki Copyright 2013.
Excerpts from Pantheon Books.
"What is it ? "
Six pairs of black eyes staring at me
Or rather, next to the purple stick in my hand.
"This is a vibrator," I answered in English, racking my brains for the correct Arabic words.
I thought of "One thing that can move quickly", but this also applies to manual mixers, and I decided to use my native language to reduce my feeling of getting more and more chaotic in the room.
One of the women curled up in a van next to me and began to unwrap her headscarf, a cluster of black hair falling from her back, and she carefully set the headscarf aside.
"What does it do? " she asked.
"Well, it vibrates," I added, taking a sip of mint tea, taking a bite of syrupy baklava and getting some time for myself before inevitably joining again"But why?
"How did I show sex toys in the morning of the coffee of a housewife in Cairo, which is a long story.
Over the last five years, I 've traveled in the Arab region asking people questions about sex: what they do, what they don't do, what they think, and why.
From your point of view, it may sound like a dream job or a very questionable career.
It's totally another thing for me: sex is the lens I investigate the past and present somewhere in the world, a place that has written a lot but is still rarely understood.
Now, I agree with you that sex seems to be a strange choice, because since the beginning of this decade, there has been a scene of popular resistance everywhere in the Arab world, this makes some of the most entrenched regimes in the region
First in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen
The rest are shaking.
However, some observers even believe that young sexual energy was the first source of protest.
I'm not sure.
Although I often hear Egyptians say their fellow citizens have spent 99.
On the exciting days of early 2011, they spent 9% of their time thinking about sex, and having sex once seemed to be the last thing in people's minds.
However, I do not believe that this is completely invisible.
Sexual Attitudes and sexuality are closely related in religion, tradition, culture, politics and economy.
They are part of sex.
That is, behavior and everything that comes with it, including gender roles and identities, sexual orientation, happiness, intimacy, pornography and reproduction.
So sex is a mirror of the conditions that lead to these uprisings, and it will be a measure of hard-
Reform has been won in the next few years.
In his reflection on the history of the West, the French philosopher Michel Fuke described sex as "a particularly intensive turning point in power relations: between men and women, between young people and the elderly, parents and future generations, teachers and students, pastors and lay people, governments and people.
"The same is true in the Arab world: if you really want to know someone, start with their bedroom.
If it weren't for the events of September 11, 2001, I might never have opened that door.
When the world changes, I work in The Economist.
Before I became a journalist, I had been trained by immunologists, and I was in the health and science field, far from the great political debate at that time.
In those gaps, I had the opportunity to sit down and watch my colleagues work to solve the complex problems in the Arab region.
I saw their faith in Britain.
In the early days of the war in Iraq, the strength and prosperity of the United States gradually turned into doubt and then confusion.
Why are Iraqis not in a hurry to embrace this new world order?
Why do they rarely follow the scripts of Washington and London?
Why do they behave in the opposite way to Western expectations?
In short, what makes them tick?
For me, this is not a question of geopolitics or anthropology;
This is a matter of personal identity.
The Arab world is in my blood: My father is an Egyptian, and through him my family roots extend from concrete in Cairo to cotton fields deep in the Nile Delta.
My mother is from a green valley far away.
A former mining village in South Wales
It turned me into half an Egyptian, though most people in the Arab region shook their heads when I told them about it.
This is not "half" for them ";
Because my father is completely Egyptian, so am I.
I am also a Muslim because he is a Muslim.
My mother's family is a Christian: her father is a Baptist priest, and her brother became a pastor of the Welsh church in a leap forward in the upward flow of the Anglican Church.
But my mother converted to Islam because she married my father.
She was not obliged to do so;
Muslim men are free to marry ahl al
Kitab, or someone on the book.
They include Jews and Christians.
Being a Muslim is a matter of faith, not coercion, for my mother.
I was born in the UK and grew up in Canada, a long time ago "Muslim in the West" was a topic.
There are several people in our school (
I grew up in a university town near Toronto)
But I never thought about it.
Then I was added to the Islamic icing on the Western way of life: my only memorial was to stay away from pork and alcohol and learn al-Fatiha—
The opening of the Quran-
My parents asked me to recite it before our very British Sunday lunch.
As the only Muslim in the neighborhood, we were always the first to hang up Christmas lights, and there was never a pile of chocolate eggs on Easter.
As for Egypt, every year we visit my grandmother, Nouna azizza, and a large group of aunts, uncles and cousins.
We are outsiders: My mother is the only Western woman (
Khawagayya, Arabic, Egypt)
In my childhood, we were the only people living outside Egypt.
So between the prestige of my father as the eldest son and my own foreign descent, I was bathed in the spotlight.
My Nuna apartment is a shrine to a small branch of our exile family;
In the plastic plants of petit point, the playful Shepherd and the shy maiden, our pictures are squeezed on the coffee table and the console, and their delicate gold-plated legs seem to be with such a great maternal love
As I grew up, I began to love Egypt and respect Islam, but I never thought about going beyond the surface.
Back in Canada, many of my father's Egyptian friends questioned his decision not to raise his only child in strict accordance with his faith.
The Muslim prayer ceremony salat did not teach me and I did not learn Arabic.
This is not because my father was not convicted.
He is a devout Muslim, praying five times a day, reciting the Quran from memory every morning;
He was a Haji and made a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.
During Ramadan, he strictly abides by fasting and never pays zakat or alms for the poor.
But my father saw his friends impose Islam and their own education in Arabia on their children.
Especially their daughter.
It's like a vaccine against Western diseases.
However, more often than not, these parents see it as dangerous, and their children see it as an opportunity for many to give up their religious and cultural heritage, in their view, this heritage is too powerful a drug.
On the other hand, my parents gave me freedom to come to my religion and my roots in my own way and time.
That moment was after September 11.
Like many people across the east and west, I was forced to study my origins carefully.
It's unusual for me to choose as my lens.
But that's understandable given my background.
Part of my work at The Economist is to write articles on HIV, including the grim task of reporting the status of the global epidemic.
The United Nations agency responsible for tracking the disease, the Aids programme, publishes a large number of daunting latest statistics every year.
I have not been concerned about a large number of people living with HIV.
Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, but small infections in the Arab region, where the prevalence of infections is only a small part of other regions.
In an era of mass immigration and instant access to services, how can a region of the world maintain an immunization against HIV?
Is it possible that people in the Arab region are not engaged in dangerous acts at all?
No shared needles or contaminated blood supply or unsafe sex?
When I started asking questions, I began to fall into the gap between the public image and the private reality reflected in the official statistics.
When many people were busy assuring me that HIV was not and could not be a problem elsewhere in the Arab world, I met with all the infected families, and heard more and more urgent requests from those who work silently, asking them to stop the spread of the epidemic.
The more I look at it, the more I realize that the main gap between appearance and reality is sex: the collective is unwilling to face any act contrary to the ideal of marriage, resistance supported by religious interpretation and social customs.
In a broad sense, this sexual climate looks like the West at the edge of the sexual revolution.
Many of the potential forces driving change in Europe and the United States exist in the modern Arab world, even if only in the embryonic stage: the struggle for democracy and individual rights;
The rapid development of the city and the increasing tension in the family structure have relaxed the community's control over private behavior;
A large number of young people, whose influence and attitude are different from those of their parents;
Transformation of the role of women;
Transforming Sex into consumer goods through economic expansion and liberalization.
In addition to this, through the media and immigration, more exposure to the sexual concept of the rest of the world.
All of this raises the question: with political turmoil, earth-shaking changes have taken place in the region --Next line?
Due to their essential differences in history, religion and culture, the West cannot guide the transformation of the Arab world.
Development is a journey, not a race, and different societies take different paths.
However, some destinations are more popular than others.
I believe that a society that allows people to make their own choices and realize their sexual potential provides them with the education, tools and opportunities to do so, respecting the rights of others in this process is a better place for it.
I do not believe that this is fundamentally incompatible with the social values of the Arab world, which is once again open to all aspects of human sexuality and possibly again.
There is also no need for this irreparable conflict with the dominant faith in the region: it is through their interpretation of Islam that many Muslims arm themselves and their religion.
The book tells the story of those who try to break free: Researchers who dare to explore the heart of sex;
Scholars who re-interpret the current traditional text that limits the choice;
A lawyer who struggles for fairer legislation;
A doctor who attempts to mitigate physical and psychological effects;
There are religious leaders who have the courage to preach tolerance, who have spoken here about the curse;
Activists trying to ensure sexual safety on the street;
Writers and filmmakers who challenge the limits of expression;
Bloggers who are creating new spaces for public debate.
This is also the story of those who oppose them;
After decades of stagnation, the changing political landscape in the Arab region is opening up new opportunities for the two regions.
The stories took more than a thousand days, and like 1,001 nights, they infiltrated each other in unexpected ways.
In chapter one, they help us understand how the sexual attitudes of East and West change over time.
In chapter 2, they lit up the trouble of getting in and out of the bedroom with marriage.
In chapter 3 they show us the sexual minefield of youth, and in chapter 4 they point out the methods of safe passage through sex education, contraception and abortion --
What to do when the trigger is pressed, as is the case with an unmarried mother.
Chapter 5 explores many different levels of work in the region, as well as the prospects of relevant personnel.
In Chapter 6, we look at those who break the heterosexual pattern and how they see the future themselves.
Finally, Chapter Seven talks about
Look at the current situation and consider how to develop a fairer and more fulfilling culture in the coming decades.
Although these stories highlight all the dilemmas, this is not another book on what is wrong with the Arab region.
This is about what is right: how people on the ground solve their problems in a different way than the rest of the world.
This is not an academic book, nor is it part of the exotic Arab world.
In the end, it's a snapshot album from the whole region, shot by people trying to get to know the region better in order to get to know themselves better.
Those looking for an encyclopedia or a peep show should search elsewhere.
So far, I have talked about the Arab world as a collective entity, as if we could generalize about 20
Two national 300 50 million of people three religious a few ten a religious factions and ethnic group.
The word Middle East is more of a geographical mixer, not just Arabic,
English-speaking countries in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the eastern Mediterranean, but no
Arab Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and occasionally Pakistan will also be properly abandoned.
While sexual attitudes and sexuality in Arab countries have essential similarities, there are also important differences in the way societies are --or are not—
Address these challenges.
This distinction transcends sexual behavior and is clearly reflected in the different political changes that have been triggered by the popular uprising of the decade.
So from now on, details.
The center of the book is Egypt, especially Cairo, where the population represents the length of the country and the broad social scope.
Regardless of personal history, Egypt is a natural focus, because it is the most populous country in the Arab region, because of its strategic geopolitical importance, it also retains strong political, economic and cultural influence throughout the region.
When I started my journey, very few people in this area
Outside Egypt. agreed with me.
In the heart of the Arab world for centuries, nearly 60 years after World War II, the military dictatorship has severely weakened Egypt, and its neighbors have risen in economic, political and cultural terms.
Egypt is considered a failed country, a poor, narrow country
Islam, infrastructure collapse, cultural decline, rampant corruption and political rigidity.
Or, as my taxi driver in Rabat, the Moroccan capital, said, it's very simple: "Egyptians, it's too selfish. And for what?
Egypt lost the plot, they said.
But once millions of people get up against the regime, the same voice heralds it as a beacon of change across the region.
Further down the road, protesters from Wall Street to Sydney tried to bring home the uprising in Egypt.
Since the 2011 incident, solidarity protests around the world, tensions in western capitals, anxiety among Arab leaders and continued reports from global media have made it clear that what has happened in Egypt remains important, not only for their own citizens, but also for the rest of the world.
Egypt has rediscovered its geopolitical charm, and in the process it has gained a long-term
Opportunities to reshape society, including culture
Changes will be closely watched by neighbouring countries.
On many of the thorny issues of sex, the example of change is at home.
This is a pragmatic question, not a question of shavism.
While significant progress has been made on sexual issues elsewhere in the global South and impressive lessons to be learned, Egyptians should be easier to understand and adopt, it's natural to change when they see it in a more recognizable package.
Therefore, I have focused on Morocco and Tunisia in the West, as well as Lebanon in the east, which have provided a model for Egypt to deal with at least some collective issues.
I have been to the Gulf countries.
This includes the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
The region has had a considerable impact on Egyptians through the media, money and immigration, and has strongly shaped (
Some people will argue, or twist)
The social and sexual attitude of Egypt over the past half century.
You will hear voices from other parts of the Arab region, and their situation reveals the situation in Egypt.
"Sorry if I sometimes just hint at the names of the heroes in my anecdote without mentioning them more explicitly. ? . ? . ? .
It is enough for me to give only those names of harmless human beings, and their mention will not bring any condemnation to ourselves or to them;
Either it is because the matter is notorious, it is not good for the parties to conceal and evade clear details, or, because the person being reported is very satisfied and his story should be made public, there is no objection in any way to being talked about.
"This disclaimer comes from Ibn Hazm, a Muslim philosopher of the tenth and eleventh centuries in Spain, and his famous paper" The ring of pigeons "is a guide to the user's fall, love, out of love.
I followed the same policy thousands of years later: if it's just a name, it's changed.
I was a scientist before I became a journalist, and this book reflects this kind of training.
I have supplemented the personal story with hard data as long as possible; as vice-
Chair of the Global Commission on HIV and law, a United Nations body that advocates legal reform around the world, including laws that regulate sexual behavior, I was given the privilege of visiting both.
This information is difficult to obtain in the Arab region, as there is still very little research on sexuality here.
Many of the pressing issues have not been solved, and the results are often locked in drawers.
The goal of this book is to help change this situation as part of a new era of openness and freedom of knowledge that millions of people in the Arab world want.
To this end, "Sex and the City" also comes with a website, www.
Sexy and sexy.
Com, where you can find a lot of extra facts, numbers, and discoveries on the topic at hand, as shown in the endnote.
I encourage readers not only to visit the website, but also to contribute to the website by publishing relevant news, events and research in Arabic, English or French.
The website is designed to be the center of communication for Arab regional information, and this book is a resource for all those who want to know about the past and the present and work together to create a better future for future generations.
Sex and Castle are by no means the last words of the Arab world about sex, but for others it is an early step at the turning point in the region's history.