Sexual Encounters in the Middle East

Book excerpt: This book, now available in paperback, is a fascinating study of a hitherto neglected topic: the way in which British, French, and Arab men and women related to each other sexually, primarily during the 19th and 20th centuries. In examining sexual perceptions propagated in travel writing, paintings, and novels together with sexual experiences of individuals, the author argues that sexual attitudes have deeply influenced Euro-Arab relationships in the past and still do so today. Sexual attitudes and proclivities affected the ways in which people reacted to each other and, perhaps more controversially, influenced the course of history. Inherited sexual ideas colored everyday relations in the Middle East and the relationships of Arabs in Europe. The book also examines how modern Arab writers have treated Euro-Arab sexual relations in their many novels and short stories.