Feminist Arab authors are writing about the need for a sexual revolution in the Arab world. Male Arab journalists are penning columns about the sexual misery in the Middle East. Feminist Muslim women are organizing online magazines such as Sister-hood and Sedaa in order to reclaim a voice for female secular progressives of Muslim heritage. Head-scarfed women have chosen to remove their hijabs in defiance of restrictions on female dress. While other women have taken to more radical action, by protesting naked. [...]
In this way, sexuality has become the axis upon which enlightened values and progress have pivoted between nations. Sexual freedoms have become a litmus test between open societies and closed ones. The drug that dogmatic ideologues are usually addicted to is control, and the thirst for control almost always manifests itself in sexual control. This is why the subject of sex among women, gays and “unmarried” youth fascinates extremists of all bents. And it is why—regardless of our gender or sexual orientation—the struggle against controlling sexuality should preoccupy us all.
