Sexual liberties remain one of the most controversial and contested freedoms in the Middle East. Despite the mild normalisation of open expressions of sexuality in popular culture, sexual liberties can never be taken for granted anywhere in the region. The ‘debate’ concerning sexual liberty flares up in moments of transition or sociopolitical upheaval, the most notable of which was the Arab Spring, and the crushing disappointment that followed as the counterrevolution took hold everywhere.
It would be ahistorical to assume that the regional conversation on sexual liberties, especially coming on the heels of the 1960s sexual revolution and second-wave feminism, only began during the Arab Spring. Intellectuals and activists have debated issues of gender, sexuality, suffrage, and personal liberties since the days of the Arab Nahda (renaissance) which took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the time, women were among the pioneers of social reform and criticism regarding the state of women’s rights, and writings by early Arab feminists highlight a surprisingly progressive streak given the social conservatism of the time.
In contradiction to the mainstream talking point which states that Arab feminist thought developed as a result of European influence during the Nahda, Arab intellectuals of the period, from Mary Ajami and Nazik Al-Abed to Qasim Amin and Butrus Al-Bustani, were pioneers in their calls for female emancipation, primarily through education. In the Levant and Egypt, there was room for intellectual and social debate which did not exist in other parts of the Ottoman Empire. The Empire was already experiencing political and economic decline as it slowly began to lose territory in Europe and North Africa to expanding European colonial empires. As Arab states gradually gained independence from colonial powers, namely the United Kingdom and France, the prevalent cocktail of Arab nationalism and socialism facilitated the gradual (but to some extent incomplete) entrance of women into mainstream society, initially through education and sometimes in the public sector of state-sponsored cultural and social institutions. In the classic top-down approach adopted by the mostly authoritarian states of the region, there were the tidings of a muffled feminism, which was never political and was always attached to the state; whereas in Lebanon there was a civil society movement centered on suffrage and legal equality.
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