Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in the Changing Arab World

If you really want to know a people, start by looking inside their bedrooms. As political change sweeps the streets and squares, parliaments and presidential palaces of the Arab world, Shereen El Feki has been looking at upheaval a little closer to home—in the sexual lives of men and women in Egypt and across the region. The result is an extraordinary, informative and engaging account of an aspect of Arab society that is still largely hidden from view.

Sex is entwined in religion and tradition, politics and economics, gender and generations, making it the perfect lens for examining the region's complex social landscape. In this talk, El Feki takes a fresh look at the sexual history of the Arab region, and brings new voices to the debate over its future. With a look back at changing sexual attitudes in the Middle East, and West, El Feki examines what has been driving a shift towards today’s anxieties in the Arab region, and how this plays out in everyday lives: from the taboo of premarital sex to trouble in the conjugal bed; from sexed-up writing to censored movies; from debates over sexual education and abortion to the incendiary topic of unwed motherhood; from the booming business of sex work to the struggles of those who break the heterosexual mould. This is not a talk about what’s wrong in the Arab world. It’s about what’s right: from national policies to community projects to individual choices, El Feki explores how people are finding solutions to their problems, while staying true to their religion and culture, and what this means for the future of democracy across the region.