Tackling the taboo in the Muslim World
This speaks for itself. Sadly, there seems to be very little concept of romance in much of the Muslim world. As I mentioned before, sex is the only reason many American Muslim converts get married with no other concern (like compatibility) at all…
On a recent trip to Yemen, Heba Kotb drew an audience of about 300 women at a local university campus. Virtually all of them were swathed in long, traditional black abayas, concealing their bodies. Most women also covered their faces, revealing only their eyes.
There was no way to tell what they looked like or how old they were. But it was clear what was on their minds: sex. One asked whether her husband’s intimate requests were normal. Another sought advice on what an unmarried woman should do if she feels sexually excited.
A veiled and observant Muslim medical doctor, Ms. Kotb is a Cairo-based sex therapist — which makes her a pioneer in this part of the world. She combines Islam and tradition with science and modernity, encouraging her conservative and religious audience to discuss a topic largely shunned in public.
Doing so, she says, will help save many a troubled marriage in the Arab world and rescue the young from inaccurate sexual information. “Sexual relations are like a gas station. . . If the gas is no good, the car will break,” she says. “This is what happens to marriages in the Arab world; most of them are in shambles.”
Social researchers say studies on sex in the Arab world are scarce, partly because the taboo surrounding the issue makes it very difficult to gather credible information. But anecdotal evidence, they say, suggests many divorces stem from sexual problems.
When divorce happens because of this, the simple solution for men is to get a younger, more attractive wife. The woman, being divorced, will have a hard time getting remarried.
Ms. Kotb is part of an important current — Muslims recasting the age-old verses of the Islamic scripture to tackle real-life problems with a contemporary flair. They play increasingly prominent roles as many young Muslims rediscover their faith as an alternative to what some see as a promiscuous West.
[...]
With little or no sex education in Egypt, young men and women often depend on their peers, the Internet or other informal, and sometimes inaccurate, channels for information. Sexual relations outside wedlock are forbidden by Islam.
A few years ago, only a handful of people visited Ms. Kotb’s Cairo practice each week. Now, she is sometimes booked up for more than two months ahead, mostly with middle-class and well-to-do clients. She recently started her own show on an Egyptian satellite channel and is being bombarded by invitations to lecture in the most conservative corners of the Arab society.
“No one should harbor the illusion that as long as you’re keeping the issue of sex from your children they won’t learn about it,” Ms. Kotb said on her program. “They will search and move from being ignorant to learning the wrong information.”
Couldn’t agree more. The best place to learn about sex is from one’s parents in a straight forward manner. When my parents told me about sex (at a young age) they also told me about STD’s and the consequences of casual sex. I see it this way: Either they learn it from you or the gutter.
Not everyone appreciates her openness. Egyptian sociologist Azza Korayem says that while she supports the idea of sex education, she believes Ms. Kotb “goes into too many details about relations. This could excite those who don’t know better.”
Isn’t that what education is for? So do we continue to be pretentious about these subjects? Of course it should be done in good taste, but don’t insult anyone’s intellect (or maturity) here. And I don’t think she would draw large audiences from practicing Muslims if it was in bad taste.
And yet couples, many devout, began coming for advice. At the behest of parents, Ms. Kotb gave sex-education classes for teenagers at her office. She also lectured across the region.
[...]
Ms. Kotb told viewers they could use fake names to call. One caller said she got married five years ago without any knowledge about sex. “My mom didn’t teach me a thing and I suffered from a lot of problems because of this.” Another wanted to know if circumcised women — those whose genitalia have been partly removed for cultural or religious beliefs — reacted differently to sex. A 27-year-old man said he couldn’t resist the stimulation provided by pornography even though he had recently wed.
She reassured her audience that most of their concerns were normal, and that the problems raised shouldn’t impede anyone from enjoying a healthy sex life. (The 27-year-old man, however, she advised to focus more on his wife and improve his relationship with God.)
While pushing the envelope, Ms. Kotb is no Western-style liberal. She believes homosexuality is a disease. Negotiations for a possible show on a well-known Arab channel fell through, partly because she objected to a sponsor who wanted to advertise lingerie, she says.
Still, her critics argue that talk about sex “opens the eyes” of the unmarried to a topic best left alone. Abdel Moety Bayoumi, a member of the Islamic Research Academy, said sex education could be accepted if done “from a religious perspective” to teach people what’s right and what’s wrong. There was no need for going beyond that, he added.
“Look at how many generations have gone through their whole lives without sex education. Did this affect human life?”
“Leaving it alone” and making subjects like romance and sex into a taboo is making problems worse in my humble opinion.
If it was not such a taboo, many men living a pretentious righteous life in front of everyone else while living a secret life watching porn and/or even visiting prostitutes (yes, it happens) might seek some help for their problem instead of opting to continue to live the pretentious life.
Because the subject is so taboo, those that have this problem have noone to talk to about getting help for this problem. It is not supposed to exist so why talk about it? Actually looking into it these problems is an acknowledgment that there is a problem.
Currently, the environment can be so pretentious that porn addicts will chastise and berate other porn addicts! I have known situations where men were found to be porn addicts, and some of the people berating the person were later found to be porn addicts as well.
If a man comes to us and says that he is battling this problem, we should not look down upon him at all. Then we should keep his secret and not expose him. I would even go further and say that I don’t even see a need to give him a speech on how watching porn is haraam. The fact that he is coming to you is proof that he KNOWS that it is wrong and wants help correcting it. Then we should take all steps to try to help that we can. Chastising ONLY rarely helps.
With the current culture, the only thing likely to happen if a man is found to have this habit or he seeks help is a good chastisment, being exposed as an evil man (Faasiq) - as I said, sometimes even by people who may be addicts themselves - and ultimately abandoned (hajr).
With his honor destroyed and having been abandoned/boycotted by his ‘friends’ and community, he hits the streets for worse habits out in the open. No practical steps are ever offered to help him break the habit.
This being the case, many are keeping their problem and not seeking help rather than opting for the above nightmare. In the meantime, if someone else is exposed, then it is time to get indignent, because that is the thing to do.
In the age of the internet, the fact of the matter is that eyes are ALREADY open and the taboo is crippling our ability to solve problems. All kinds of problems not just this one. Muslims are human beings that have the same problems other human beings have, so not talking about sex will not make us automatically never think about it. It is a normal part of life that has to be addressed in the proper manner. Time to stop pretending that we are super humans that have no normal desires.
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Link: Sex in the Muslim World
Interesting Article: Love, Lust and Passion: Sex and Taboos in the Islamic World - Quote from article: “The more repressive a society is, the more desperately does it seek an outlet.” According to this article 56% of young men in the Maghreb region (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) admit to watching porn. In this article, an Egyptian prostitute met an American potential Muslim convert and wants to marry him
Related Article: In the grip of a guilty pleasure - A staggering 1000 new internet porn sites are created every day. And a growing number of Australians are finding their lure irresistible - and destructive, writes Simon Castles. If porn addiction is a problem for everyone else, what makes us think it would not be a problem for Muslims as well. not addressing it, or pretending it doesn’t exist only makes us less able to deal with it. This comes from our tendency to look at the world for how it should be and not for how it actually is.
Filed under: The Culture of Denial and Pretense
Once again you hit it on the bull’s eye. I had a porn addiction myself even while at the height of my own “righteousness” just glad that I wasn’t exposed. It is like drugs and I struggled with alone for about five years would quit and have relapses but I think it is under control now. You are right that talking about it is out of the question. I knew another “righteous” brother that was exposed by his wife that had spent thousands of dollars on porn and disappeared in disgrace. I am still not where I want to be in my deen but i feel hungover from a party in a way because the movement was not what I thought and I gave my life to it and I am trying to put my life together.
Wonder when Muslims became such prudes?
Thats why sunnipath is so popular. People can ask questions when they feel they have no where to go.
“Look at how many generations have gone through their whole lives without sex education. Did this affect human life?”
This quote is so funny. The internet has changed everything. It wasnt an issue before because people didnt know or have access to such knowledge. Just the fact thta you can access it alone(well Allah is watching), “anonymously”,I’m sure entices men who other wise would never think of doing such things.
Thats why the muslim world is desperate for Islamic counselors who are really understand what people are dealing with in our modern times and are also educated in the sciences of tassawwuf, tazkiya, whatever you want to call it.
ok, that spiegal article is so stupid. Why does the west blame everything on have conservative traditional values. I believe a large part of the problem is that delaying marriege so late, (late twenties, thirties) and unrealistic expectations of what marriage should be. With all the problems in Muslim countries I can’t believe premarital sex etc is as rampant as is in the west. Even amonst the elite who want to copy everything western, I doubt its as rampant.
Um Abdillah:
Of course you need to weed out the trash in the Spiegal article. The fact is that these things are happening.
The problems are:
- Unreasonably high dowries
- Such a high premium on virgins that divorced and widowed women can hardly get married. This has created a culture in which fornicators repair their hymen to get married
- Men are not what they used to be. In the past a man could reasonably get married at 14-15. That is out of the question today.
The point is not to compare the Muslim world to the West, but to address a problem for what it is. I don’t think anyone will tell you that it is as rampant as it is in the West. I don’t really like the ‘well at least we’re better than them’ way of looking at things.
The fact remains that there is a problem. Nothing wrong with conservative values. There IS something wrong with pretentious conservative values that have a hypocritical undercurrent, which is the case here in the US in many cases as well.
I would not be surprised if porn addicts rivaled porn addicts in the US (per internet connection) I was at an internet cafe in a Muslim country and the young men were openly looking at porn. It was ridiculous
Tariq,
This is a good piece akh. I mentioned the other day that brothers in Syria who are so desperate for any sight of a woman break into hospitals to get a glimpse of women in labor because that is there only chance to see some. I have also had many Arab men tell me that a woman who likes or enjoys sex is dirty and no good and these brothers are marries so I can only guess what kind of action is going on in the bedroom.
Now, maybe I shouldn’t mention it, but hey when have I ever held back, but I had a cellmate of mine back in the day who was a pimp in Boston who dealt with high price clientele and he used to have a lot of Saudi clients who would only request white blonde women and the girls would come back and say the same thing every time absolutely no foreplay and the sex act lasted less than one minute. (and of course these are hookers so I mean they cant expect the guy to be engaging in too much foreplay unless he wants to get some kind of disease or something).
BTW, message for my newly converted Muslim sisters; when that Arab brother with a thick accent comes at you and is so happy at your conversion, he wants to show your more than his prayer rug when he invites you to his apartment.
lol@Umar…
“he wants to show your more than his prayer rug when he invites you to his apartment. “
as salaamu alaikum,
I strongly agree with making sure that Muslims who are coping with various addictions, particularly hidden addictions, should be encouraged and brought closer to the center of the community… I once had a random brother call me up in the middle of the night telling me how he didnt know who he could turn to but he had committed a major sin. I didnt want to ask him what the sin was but he was distressed and because this bro was newly practicing the deen, he began missing salat at the masjid because of his fear that he wasnt a good Muslim… My point being that he called me up since there was no way he was ever gonna call the Imam up or even talk to him about the problem facing him. who was I to give him answers or advice on such an issue? Nobody, but when there is a lack of people working on such issues, its what happens.
On a larger scale, I appreciate the work that sister in the article is doing. Even the US, the Al Maghrib Institute has developed seminars such as the ‘Fiqh of Love’(http://www.almaghrib.org/fol.php) and ‘Love Notes’ (http://www.almaghrib.org/ln.php) to show the intimate side of marriage relationships.
I think if such seminars and discussion groups are done right, they can be of great benefit. The bottom line is that Muslims need to start countering the smut culture by showing how sexual relations, when done through Halal means, are a blessing that bring emotional maturity and stability in one’s spiritual and mental health…
At the same time the problems of absurd dowries, virgin lust, and parents demands that men be MD’s before marrying their daughters also exacerbate the temptation for men and women to go towards haram ways to fulfill their desires; and this reality cuts across all groups - sufi, tableeghi, salafi, progressive, etc.
Allahumustaan
>>by showing how sexual relations, when done through Halal means, are a blessing that bring emotional maturity and stability in one’s spiritual and mental health…
Amin to that!
SAlaam ‘Alaikum
//“Look at how many generations have gone through their whole lives without sex education. Did this affect human life?”//
And they probably had parents, siblings, midwives, and others to discuss it with them… and they didn’t live in houses where everyone had their own bedroom… and they were familiar with what the animals are doing. And they weren’t assaulted with conflicting images.
If anyone thinks the youth here don’t know, my personal experience is that they do, indeed. And they need guidance and wisdom… and to be freed of the cultural garbage. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) didn’t condemn women who enjoy themselves, so why do people here do so? UGH.
[...] It is for this reason that people like Dr Heba Kotb are popular with those seeking some type of balance in this instead of pretending it does not exist at all. Why is one extreme or the other always the only choices? Behind the pundits’ outrage lies the story of a revolution in Arab pop culture that started in Lebanon and has turned seductive young vocalists and dancing divas into influential public figures. In most Arab capitals recently, street protesters hoisted banners cheering Hezbollah and demanded that Arab elites adopt a similar stance. But Wehbe and other top-selling Arab pop stars don’t answer to the Arab street. If they take orders from anyone, it’s Al-Waleed bin Talal, the wily Saudi prince whose entertainment empire dominates Middle Eastern music and satellite television [...]
[...] 8. Muslims must accept that in a hyper-sexualised society many more Muslims will be guilty of committing sexual sins, community leaders should be more understanding and sympathetic in these circumstances. One does not need to condone an act to be sympathetic to the individual. Tariq Nelson draws our attention to this. [...]
you said here that you have known of men that chatise and berate others of looking at porn when they themselves look at it. unfortunatley this has happened regarding many that are close to myself. it’s a sad situation of course. they think they can hide it and act righteous in front of the communities and their families..but what they don’t realize is that the people and their families see right through them. honestly have you ever seen a person lthat looks at porn? the noor has just vanished from their face? i have, it is a very sad site indeed. especially when it is some one you happen to love and care for very much.
what some of these men and women don’t realize is that when you do something for the pleasure of allah his rewards are greater than you can ever expect. i was once told that i couldn’t keep someone from sinning and that person was right but it also happen to be a person that was doing this same sin. he never wanted to give it up. his wife left him eventually…slowly but surely but she did. he never saw it coming. he thought because she put up with it once she always would be there. but that wasn’t the case. and he deserved it too. it was more important for him to skip his prayers and watch porn on the internet than to spend time with his family by teaching them their deen. then he had the nerve to say “they” were ignorant of their deen.
“…by showing how sexual realtions, when done through HALAL means are a blesing that brings emotional maturity and stability in ones spiritual and mental health…”
this is exactly what it shows. i’m sorry but these same so called knowledgeable brothers that do these kinds of dispicable acts shows really how immature and how far away from allah they really are.
i have a friend that recently told me her husband had and affair with a prostitute. she is really going through some stuff but i really don’t know what to say to people who are married to respectable and very knowledgable men who go around with no shame and sleep with prostitutes. i am still in state of digust.
your also right when i did my article on “pornography and how it starts” i could only find christian websites that kept saying that the community needed to have some type of support group for this problem. unfortunatly though too many muslim are just to proud to get help to begin with.
i had actually posted this same article when i first started my blog. i am going to link to you inshallah. you made very excellent points. i know my readers will benfit from this if they haven’t already. jazak allahu kahairan for a very informative post.
[...] It should be pretty obvious to most of us, especially the Muslims who still maintain ties/visitations to the “motherlands” that the Muslim world does indeed have a problem with sex. There is a growing level of promiscuity, sexual frustration, intimate problems in marriage, etc. that are causing havoc in the Muslim countries. Tariq Nelson had discussed this topic sometime back in this article. [...]
Interesting..
I wonder why some sheiks don’t speak about sheiks who actually wrote sexual manuals better than the Kama Sutra.
I guess the works for Sir Richard Burton never struck a chord?
Hail!
What do you think about Tokio Hotel? >
I am a newly converted sister. Let me tell you one thing, it is DIFFICULT to find a decent muslim man, I have tried matrimonial websites, and all the men ever want is to meet. I did go to a Muslim brother’s apartment (He was Palistinean American), and he did show me more than his prayer rug-unfortuntantly. I am not saying that I am innocent-I knew what I was doing was wrong. But anyhow, I am not doing that again. It’s just that so many men-regardless of religion-are creeps that just want sex. I almost married an Egyptian doctor-but he was a secret porn addict that liked anal sex. So there was no Nikah. I really have been hurt. Ya Allah. Soo… I think it is better of me to give up and just stay single. Ameen to that.
PS: Forgive me if I have offended anyone-but I am just being honest about how Muslim men love American Convert girls and just use them sexually.
Even though I’m not Muslim, when it comes to screwed up guys like the ones that you mentioned in your post, they all make you want to scream.
I’m a single woman and though I’m not worried about it, there are other people who are. I’m “old” in today’s societal standards( Being in your late thirties like I’am isn’t OLD. The way people carry on about they make you seem like you’re ancient), I’m at age where my biological clock is winding down and in my case, they worry about these guys going to younger women, but in spite of it, I love being a single female.
The problem with our society is that they want us to meet the status quo: get married, have those kids and live happily ever after(?). I remembered having those same feelings of wanting to get hitched because it seemed that everybody around me was doing it. I did alright: I dated a real Neanderthal man. He just had this prehistoric way of viewing womenand men . Women and men should/shouldn’t do kind of thinking. He even thought that women shouldn’t go to college and /or work .ohe even offended a man on his job for being a being an RN. I just pictured myself being in a marriage with this man, I just imagined it to the core and I got nauseous from thought of it. My uncle hated him to the point that he told that if I married him that he would pay for our divorce. Thankfully, he didn’t have to worry about it. The man had to go.
In spite of guys like my ex and those men you mentioned in your post, I still believe that there are lot of good men in this world. Sometimes, they may be in our faces and not know it. He may not come at your time,but he’s may be out there and he will probably end up being the best guy in the world. Let’s also say that you aren’t able to find Mr. Right, it’s ok. People may say that you need a spouse to survive. How untrue that is. Happiness comes from you and the god. that is what count the most.
People feel that may regret my thoughts. That is a chance that I will take for myself. I’m not looking for anybody, but if it’s meant for me to get married, so be it. I don’t want to do things because my friends/family doing it( and for the record, at 60 percent of them are asking me and others where they can find good divorce lawyers). I want to be at peace with my life. I may or may not regret my thoughts, but I much would rather regret not the additional baggage on my shoulders than for me to do something that I will regret for the rest of my life.
For those struggling with a pornography addiction, there is a support group (Muslim Accountability Circle) thats just been started at http://www.no-porn.com. Click on forums, register as a member, click on the support boards, and then click on accountability circle. There you’ll see a posting for the Muslim Accountability Circle. It’s completely anonymous. This might very well be the first support circle of its kind for Muslims on the internet.