Desiring Arabs

469 Pages·2007·1.38 MB·English

by  Joseph A. Massad

Desiring Arabs

Desiring Arabs
JOSEPH A. MASSAD
The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London
JOSEPH A. MASSAD is associate professor of modern Arab
politics and intellectual history at Columbia University. He is the
author of Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan
andThe Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and
the Palestinians.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2007 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2007
Printed in the United States of America
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-50958-7 (cloth)
ISBN-10: 0-226-50958-3 (cloth)
An earlier version of chapter 3 was published in the journal Public
Culture (Spring 2002).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Massad, Joseph Andoni, 1963–
Desiring Arabs / Joseph A. Massad.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-50958-7 (cloth : alk paper)
ISBN-10: 0-226-50958-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Civilization, Arab. 2. Arabs—Sexual behavior. 3. Arab
countries—Foreign public opinion, Western. I. Title.
DS36.77.M38 2007
306.70917'4927—dc22 2006039690
(cid:2)(cid:2) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of the American National Standard for Information
Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI
Z39.48-1992.
To the memory of
MAGDA AL-NOWAIHI AND EDWARD W. SAID

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Anxiety in Civilization 51
2 Remembrances of Desires Past 99
3 Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and
the Arab World 160
4 Sin, Crimes, and Disease: Taxonomies of Desires
Present 191
5 Deviant Fictions 269
6 The Truth of Fictional Desires 335
Conclusion 415
Works Cited 419 Name Index 443 Subject Index 449

Acknowledgments
This book was supposed to be an intellectual history of the
modern Arab world revolving around the question of cul-
ture, heritage, and modernity. At the time, I began to think
about it, and I presented an initial paper on the subject
at the annual conference of the Middle East Studies Asso-
ciation, I did not think that the question of desire would
become so essential to it. The book would soon take a dif-
ferent turn altogether.
In fact, the question of sexual desire did not come about
due to an initial scholarly interest in the subject matter but
rather out of political frustration with the nature of West-
ern political discourse on and journalistic representations
of the sexual desires of Arabs. Since I arrived in the United
States in pursuit of university education in the early 1980s,
I argued with many Westerners and a few Arabs who re-
produced the discourse of sexual identities as “universals”
and upheld their “right” to defend such identities wherever
they were repressed. I disagreed vehemently. When I chose
the scholarly route, I came to understand identities as dis-
cursive effects, and therefore opted not to publish anything
about the subject in order not to contribute to the prob-
lem by inciting more discourse about it. Mervat Hatem
and Neville Hoad, friends and scholars, began to push me
since the early 1990s to articulate my ideas in writing, as
the analysis and political views I espoused were not being
represented at all, and the discourse was expanding relent-
lessly. My contribution, I hoped, while admittedly incit-
ing more discourse in the Western academy, could at least
introduce a necessary criticism to which most remained
ix