'Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World' by Shereen El Feki

gave me a sense of perspective and hope for all our futures

I thought this book was about Arab women and politics.  Instead, it is about humans and their most fundamental rights, hopes and of course, desires.  The first time I tried to describe this book I said it was about human sexuality.  The rejoinder was "homosexuality?"  No, it is about all of sexuality.  Humans as sexual beings and the power attached to the control of sex.  It is a vast topic, but the setting (the current Arab world, especially Egypt) narrowed the scope.  The author focused beautifully; Shereen El Feki discusses a taboo topic in the Arab world with grace, curiosity and openness.

Her questions and observations sometimes looked frighteningly familiar.  As a woman in Western Europe, life seems quite free with guarantees and rights that give me control of my own body, regardless of marital status.  But here is the rub... many guarantees are recent.  It is not too long ago that babies were taken away from single mothers and abortion was illegal (often at the same time in the same country).  My daughter does not imagine life without her rights, I do.  The Americas are still struggling with reproductive rights, no thanks to religion for that.

Shereen El Feki made me think about freedoms I take for granted, especially with regards to information and my rights as a married woman.  But she also reminded me of how much social expectations and generational differences affected my teen years and my young adulthood in conservative South America.  I still remember, a female relative in despair over my attitude about school work said, with some force: "If you continue like this you won't even marry a virgin!"  I think she meant me, rather than the groom... It was the worst fate she could think of in that moment... Not so funny once I read 'Sex and the Citadel'.

The Western World, thanks to money and belligerence, considers itself an influential society.  And it is.  But the expectations of change and growth we have are at times unrealistic in other cultures.  This is not to say that "culture" justifies the rape of someone's sister as a punishment to the man and his family for his moral lapse, like I saw on the news some months ago... The rights to the sister's body belong to her family, her husband or a court, if not by law then often by tradition. Laws, culture and attitude do not easily change with only outside pressure; new laws must mean something to those people affected by them.

If any message is obvious after her interviews and research, it is that the Arab youth have some important challenges and often have their own fantastic solutions.  If only their elders would listen; fear holds the Arab world captive in their own beds with repressive sexual rules and expectations... the most repressive of all is the inability to talk about sex at all. El Feki does a wonderful job of asking good, open questions to normal people in all kinds of socio-economic and sexual situations.  Her experiences with a group of house wives is both funny and tragic... But she also talks to homosexuals and prostitutes and anyone who has a sex life or wishes they had a sex life. 'Sex and the Citadel' gave me a sense of perspective and a sense of hope for all our futures in a shrinking planet.


@shereenelfeki
Shereen El Feki 
ISBN: 9780701183165 

'I Still Dream About You' by Fannie Flagg

Too many years ago, I saw a lovely movie titled 'Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe'.  The book was promoted around the same time and so I read it.  Through the years since, I have continued to read Fannie Flagg.  Recently, I hadn't seen anything new though and was getting worried.  Then I spot it while book hunting for a friend.  'I Still Dream About You' is a sweet story about a life worth living and of course, tied to this question, a dream worth pursuing?

Fannie Flagg loves the American South.  All the contradictions, genteel traditions and violence are somehow combined to create a warm and welcoming book.  I  feel I have been acquainted with long lost Alabama relatives.  Her characters become family with all the intimacy and mystery that 'family' implies.  Intimacy, I think, is self explanatory but I will try to explain what I mean by mystery.

When someone is close to me, I become aware of motivations, desires and denials that are alien to me.  In essence, I feel privileged to be shown a new part of a person I love, but as I eagerly look I become aware of other doors left closed. Not because my loved ones are selfish but because that is the nature of humans.  How many of us have acted in ways that are inexplicable even to ourselves?  Loved something or someone without, seemingly, an act of will?  As Woody Allen said "I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown."  Well, as a metaphor I feel it works equally well for my own mind and the minds of others.

Ok, I could keep going but I hope you get the idea.  Fannie Flagg is excellent at letting me feel welcome in a home; I get to know new friends and then begin to sense the true mystery that is every individual for good or bad.  I like the sense of depth and roundness this mystery gives her characters.  The fact that a a sense of humor runs right through the middle of it is especially satisfactory.  The better I get to know her characters the more I laugh and the more interesting they become.

'I Still Dream About You' is full of these real people that inspire, confuse, grow and conquer (their own regrets).

Fanny Flag
ISBN: 9781400065936