Sex education, conservative culture, and religious values
Tits and tats about intimacy and Islam
Accurate, quality information about sexual health is hard to come by in, well, most of the world. It’s particularly difficult to access in Arab countries where conservative culture intersects with Islamic values. Dr. Deemah Salem is changing that.
In this week’s episode, Kassia is talking with Salem, an OB-GYN and sex educator in the United Arab Emirates. Since moving from Chicago to Dubai in 2014, Salem has defied tradition and delivered sex education to women, not only through her OB-GYN practice, but through her Instagram account. With more than 20k followers, she answers questions, busts myths, and provides education to women for whom sexual health is often a taboo topic.
In that spirit, we’ve gone ahead and rounded up some of the best resources on this all too often intimidating topic. Here’s a round up of all things sex, religion, and conservative culture:
READY TO LEARN?
Recommended Listening
Recommended Watching
- “If you really want to know a people, start by looking inside their bedrooms,” says Shereen El Feki, who traveled through the Middle East for five years, talking to people about sex. Watch El Feki’s TED talk or pick up a copy of her book, Sex and the Citadel.
- Dr. Deemah Salem takes to Instagram to deliver sex education
Recommended Reading
- “It’s offensive to link misogyny to one religion”: what a Muslim feminist wants you to know about Islamophobia.
- Sex education: the Arab Spring’s greatest success?
- Egypt’s sexual revolutionaries tackling the tyranny within
- Religion, culture, and the changing roles of women in the Middle East
- Discover Mauj and their incredible storytelling project, Hakawatiyya. In Arab cultures, the hakawati (or storyteller) was a traditionally male role. Mauj’s hakawatiyyas are women who have chosen to come forward to tell the stories of others who chose to remain anonymous. [CW: rape and sexual violence]
- Personal reflections at the intersection of Islam and intimacy
- Dr. Deemah Salem in the New York Times: Sex education, one Instagram post at a time.
- Social media has provided millions of Arab women with access to sex education, but are the platforms’ community standards unfairly limiting that education?