J. Michael Ryan and Helen Rizzo (eds.), Sexuality in the Middle East and North Africa: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (Syracuse University Press, 2024).
Jadaliyya (J): What made you edit this book?
Michael Ryan and Helen Rizzo (JMR & HR): The inspiration for this book came from a desire to better understand the often controversial role that sexualities play in the context of MENA politics, religions, peoples, and lived experiences, including prejudices and discriminations. As much an effort of scholarship as of activism, our driving goal behind this volume was to make the MENA region a safer and better understood place to express, live, accept, and experience sexualities. At the heart of our scholarship is a humanistic drive toward mutual understanding and social equality. As we have both lived, worked, and conducted research in the MENA region, we felt inspired not only by academic considerations, but also by our own lived experiences.
On a purely academic level, we saw the need for such a volume. While there is a (thankfully) growing literature around sexualities in the MENA region, we believe that ours is the most comprehensive volume on the subject, and one that is accessible to scholars, activists, and lay people alike.
Issues of sexuality in the area have long served as a lightning rod for international discussions ...
J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?
JMR & HR: With the growing importance of sexuality studies as an interdisciplinary field globally, the contemporary MENA region is an area ripe for the study of sexuality. Issues of sexuality in the area have long served as a lightning rod for international discussions including those related to sexual harassment, sexual and reproductive health, same-sex relations and identities, the battle between states to control information and the disruptive power of the internet in doing so, and global issues of human rights, among others. For the purposes of this volume, we define the Middle East and North Africa as including the countries of Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. All of the contributions in this volume deal with some subset of these countries depending on the relevance of the countries to their topics.
Expanding the realm of sexuality studies to more thoroughly include the MENA region and understanding sexuality in this context is an important, nay necessary, undertaking. As increasing attention has been paid to non-hegemonic gender and sexual identities around the world, the MENA region has faced challenges in terms of not only academic output, but also of academic inquiry. Our own troubles in putting together this volume have been reflective of many of the broader problems associated with the initiative to reverse these obstacles—a lack of scholarly output on the subject, a dearth of data from which to draw, and, perhaps most importantly, a justifiable fear of undertaking such an endeavor. For the moment, sexuality studies in the MENA region remains a dangerous, sometimes deadly, undertaking.
But why is this the case? As the world has witnessed an increasing global shift toward greater acceptance of female sexuality, public discussions and displays of sexuality, and gender and sexual minorities, there has been a simultaneous backlash against extending fundamental human equality toward many of the world’s most disadvantaged populations, gender and sexual minorities included. Arguably, this backlash has been particularly severe in the MENA region. As a growing number of countries have moved to extend civil equality in ways including extending abortion rights, recognizing same-sex marriages, allowing LGBT identified individuals to openly serve in the armed forces, and extending gender recognition beyond the simple binary of male and female (Ryan, “Gender Identity Laws,” 2018), other countries have responded by hardening their laws and, more importantly, with the enforcement of those laws, criminalizing, imprisoning, and even executing those seen in violation of the local sexuality-related cultural mores. Even raising questions of gender and sexual equality is now increasingly seen as a punishable offense in many countries of the MENA region.
One of the principal issues impeding a more thorough understanding of sexualities in the MENA region is that researchers are often left dealing with social taboos rather than reliable scientific data reflecting lived realities. Sociolegal analysis remains largely possible (though the ambiguity of laws in the region in relation to sexuality should be acknowledged) but survey, ethnographic, and other forms of qualitative data collection are extremely difficult. This means that researchers are often forced to rely upon individual accounts or to theorize rooted in suspicions of what alleged cultural taboos might reflect. The kind of hard data that would normally be considered prudent for scholarship often has to be replaced by armchair speculation, particularly when dealing with issues not recorded in official registers and criminal prosecutions.
Despite these impediments, interest in issues pertaining to sexuality in the MENA region has been increasing in recent years. The Arab Spring arguably awakened a call to justice for many in the region and it has since seen an increase in those willing to risk their lives in the pursuit of academic knowledge and political justice. Rather than declare a victor, the Arab Spring seems to have renewed vigor in the battle between those seeking to expand fundamental human rights and those seeking to repress “alternative” identities.
J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?
JMR & HR: We had previously edited a volume entitled Gender in the Middle East and North Africa: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (Lynne-Rienner, 2022) and so this volume is, in many ways, a companion to that volume. We have both also previously done work around issues of sexualities—Helen’s recent work focuses on activism against public sexual violence in Egypt, including the role of men and masculinities, and Michael’s research has focused on issues of trans identity and the acceptance of same-sex relationships. So this volume gave us an opportunity to (again) bring that expertise to bear on a MENA context.
J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?
JMR & HR: Our hope is that this volume will be useful to scholars, activists, and lay people alike. The goal of this volume (and one that we feel we accomplished) was to bring together a collection of scholarship into a single volume that tackled a variety of issues at the heart of understanding sexuality in the Middle East and North Africa and to do so on a more regional level rather than simply on the level of individual countries. This is not to say that some issues do not lend themselves to a focus on a particular country, or set of countries, but that the goal of the volume was to provide a regional analysis of the topics presented to the greatest extent possible. Simply put, the goal of this volume was to add to the growing literature surrounding sexualities in the MENA region and, we hope, to inspire further research. Lives are, quite literally, on the line, as are religious ideologies, political empowerments, global support networks, and fundamental issues of human rights. For all of these reasons, this volume matters.
J: What other projects are you working on now?
JMR: I am currently working on the eleventh edition of the sociological classic The McDonaldization of Society (with George Ritzer), as well as an edited collection (with Nancy Naples) entitled Genders and Sexualities in Transnational Perspective.
HR: I am currently working on a book manuscript entitled Redefining Masculinities in the Middle East: Activism against Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Egypt.
J: What were the challenges in putting this volume together?
JMR & HR: One of the major considerations when putting together this volume was the safety of the contributors (as well as the editors!). As becomes evident in the research in this volume, one of the major challenges in studying sexuality in the MENA region is the safety (both personally and professionally) of both the researcher and the population being researched. One of our many goals in publishing this volume is that that concern will be lighter for future (and present) generations of researchers. Knowledge is power, and we hope that the knowledge contained in this volume will help to empower.
Excerpt from the book (from the introductory chapter, pages 3-17)
…We divided the volume into the three major parts: “Sexual Politics, Rights, and Movements”; “Gender and Sexual Minorities”; and “Sexual Health and Identity.” Within these broad categories, the chapters tackle the similarities and differences in the contemporary challenges that countries in the MENA region face in terms of sexualities, addressing such critical issues as sexual rights movements, Islam and homosexuality, sexual citizenship and homonationalism, sexual and reproductive health, and sexualities and the internet. The contributors come from a variety of disciplines, such as anthropology (Zeina Zaatari and Maryam Hisham Fouad), political science (Grant Walsh-Haines), geography (Gilly Hartal), sociology (Orna Sasson-Levy, Ana Cristina Marques, J. Michael Ryan, and Helen Rizzo), psychology (Rusi Jaspal), epidemiology (Ismaël Maatouk and Moubadda Assi), public health (Inas Abdelwahed), and law (Salma Talaat). Moreover, the chapters rely on diverse methods and methodological approaches, such as ethnography, including observations and in-depth interviews (chapters 1 and 3), reviews of social psychological studies based on surveys and interviews (chapters 4 and 7), and reviews of the relevant literature, statistics, and demographic data (chapters 2, 5, and 6) to base their conclusions on rich empirical evidence. Drawing from different disciplines, methods, and methodologies enables this volume to provide a comprehensive overview of the important issues in sexuality studies in the MENA region now.
Part one focuses on sexual rights activism in the MENA region, which arguably did not begin to take formative political shape until the late 1990s and early 2000s. In chapter 1, Zeina Zaatari examines the sexual rights movement(s) occurring in the MENA region primarily through the actions and discourses of the movements’ activists and the social transformations they have engendered over the past twenty to thirty years. Zaatari argues that “there have been three waves of the [sexual rights movements] in the MENA region. The first wave of public engagement on sexual rights from the late 1990s to the early 2000s focused on personal freedoms and choices. The second wave in the 2000s took further steps to organize around sexual and gender diversity, with intersectional politics grounding itself politically in anti-imperialist and decolonial struggles. The third wave grew exponentially after the ‘Arab Spring’ and became more deeply entrenched in sexual-orientation and gender-identity (SOGI) discourses utilizing international frameworks and mechanisms.” Zaatari further argues that “the more the origins of the [sexual rights movements] and their activists are grounded in ‘progressive’ (leftist and/or feminist) activism, the more the movements display intersectional politics and practices, but the more the actors are initiated through an internal process of discovery of their sexuality, the more likely the movements and actions will be insular and focused on single-issue organizing, namely LGBTQIA+ identities.”
Chapter 2 focuses on the influence of the internet on sexualities in the MENA region. Middle Eastern internet users are heavily censored, with most states in the MENA region engaging in some form of internet surveillance, monitoring, or restriction. That said, the internet offers an increasingly available tool for personal and professional use in the region, including for issues related to sexuality, such as viewing porn, creating online profiles for hooking up, and participating in LGBTQ+ activism. Grant Walsh-Haines and Maryam Hisham Fouad argue that the internet activism in the Middle East “is one site of resistance against oppressive state structures and often goes hand in hand with disseminating health and safety information.” Access to the internet, they show, is ultimately “a key mechanism for expressions of sexuality [and] must be conceptualized in the human rights and human capabilities debate,” essentially tackling the question of whether “access to the internet is a human right or should . . . be considered a mechanism for increasing human capabilities.”
In chapter 3, Gilly Hartal and Orna Sasson-Levy critically examine the issues of sexual citizenship and homonationalism. Drawing on their extensive fieldwork in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, they offer critical observations with the power to inform broader discussions of sexual citizenship and homonationalism in the broader MENA region. Citing the portrayal of Tel Aviv “as the westernized, secular, and liberal economic center of Israel” versus Jerusalem “as a local city oriented toward a religious and national past,” they highlight the nuanced politics and distinct mechanisms by which sexual belonging is forged in each of these urban spaces. However, rather than drawing on an exclusive “West versus the Rest” or “global versus local” perspective, they show that both cities more critically “relate to their Middle Eastern location, albeit by merging East and West differently.” The thrust of their argument focuses on “the way sexual politics, nationalism, and neoliberal economics play distinct roles . . . in the contexts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem” and “how homonationalism and sexual citizenship interact in different urban spaces.”
In part two, the volume discusses the issues that gender and sexual minorities are facing in the MENA region. It begins with addressing the widespread perception that Islam is fundamentally opposed to homosexuality, which can present social and psychological challenges to well-being among gay Muslims. In chapter 4, Rusi Jaspal “focuses on the relations between religion and sexuality—two facets of identity that are often interconnected—among Muslim gay men.” He argues that Muslim gay men, given their awareness and acceptance of the negative social representation of homosexuality, may experience threats to identity, self-esteem, belonging, and psychological coherence as they struggle to reconcile their internalized homophobia with the reality that they cannot change their sexual orientation and “become straight.” Jaspal looks at some of the possible challenges to the promotion of sexual health among Muslim gay men in light of these threats to identity. He concludes with a persuasive argument that it is essential to engage with existing social representations of homosexuality and “to challenge [those] representations that potentially threaten the identities of Muslim gay men” for the development of “a more accepting and affirmative context in which Muslim gay men can construct their identities and take steps to enhance their sexual well-being.”
To complement Jaspal’s chapter, in chapter 5 Ana Cristina Marques, Salma Talaat, and J. Michael Ryan tackle problems faced by trans communities in the MENA region. They begin their chapter by giving an overview of the legal, social, and cultural context of being trans in the region. They then problematize “the victimization of trans people in the MENA region as part of the ‘West/East’ opposition.” They conclude their chapter “by underscoring the importance of going beyond regional dichotomies that associate the ‘West’ with freedom and the ‘East’ with oppression; having a better understanding of the influence (or lack thereof) of local, national, and inter/transnational (post)colonial agendas on trans people’s rights and their actual experiences; and producing possible pluralities, spaces of resistances, and subterranean discourses . . . of trans people and issues in this region.”
The final section of the volume focuses on sexual health and identity. Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is a crucial part of the health status of populations and a precondition for human development. In chapter 6, Inas Abdelwahed examines how these issues have become of critical importance in the MENA region, particularly since the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. “Despite the remarkable global progress toward improved SRH,” Abdelwahed argues, “there are still significant gaps between high-income countries (HICs) and low/middle-income countries (LMICs).” She also shows how humanitarian crises exacerbate inequities in access to SRH education and care across the MENA region. She pays particular attention to the ways SRH has been constructed, examined, and responded to in the cultural, social, and political context of the MENA region by “focusing primarily on youth and sexuality, maternal health, [sexually transmitted infections], infertility, and men’s reproductive health.”
Rusi Jaspal, Ismaël Maatouk, and Moubadda Assi focus in chapter 7 on aspects of identity and health outcomes in sexual minorities in the Middle East and North Africa. First, they outline tenets of minority stress theory and identity process theory from social psychology. Second, they briefly explore the social, cultural, religious, and political aspects of countries in the MENA region (in particular Lebanon). Third, they discuss their recent empirical research into sexual identity and mental health in sexual minorities in the MENA. Their research demonstrates that “sexual minorities in the region face multifaceted stressors, such as stigma on the basis of their sexual identity and internalized homonegativity,” which may result in threats to their mental health and coping abilities. They point out that “in the MENA region, religiosity and self-identification with religious (and ethnic) groups appear to constitute key sources of social support and thus reflect a prime coping strategy. Yet sexual minorities may have decreased access to these support networks, potentially leading to a reliance on alternative, less adaptive forms of coping,” such as substance misuse and sexual risk-taking. “The implications for mental health and well-being may be significant,” they state. Through the lens of social psychological theory, these authors present a way forward for research and practice in enhancing social and psychological outcomes among sexual minorities in the MENA region.
