I was 14 years old when I first wrote about sex and morality. It was an article in Arabic for my school magazine. The title was “It”. I do remember that my teacher Wafaa read the whole article without any interruption and then gave it back to me saying that she can not publish it. I was angry because I thought it is good and worth publishing as it was written for teenagers (and wrote by one). I wrote it in a decent way and was just trying to question a tradition of considering sex immoral in my society while almost everyone is thinking about it in a way or another! I questioned the relation between sex and love and at the end proposed a class about this issue to be taught for us because I knew how my fellow students were chanted by this topic. When I insisted on a reason for her rejection she said: “You can only publish such things in ‘Your Private Doctor Magazine’ the only magazine then that wrote about sex in Arabic (Tabybak El khas طبيبك الخاص) for some time later I used to be an avid reader for that magazine but my article did not find its way to the target readers.
Till now the question seems to be still open. As a teenager I thought the contradictive attitude to sex has something to do with the Egyptian/Islamic culture, but later, I realized that it is a global question. In many countries and cultures of the world sex is somehow considered to be immoral. Traditionally in Egypt, little kids and sometimes in movies, they would refer to sex as “immoral acts” (قلة أدب). On the contrary, in Islam sex is appreciated and encouraged within the social rules then as marriage, grants, and slavery. In fact there are Quran verses talking about sexual positions as a right for couples and encourages foreplay. “Your women are as a tilth unto you; so approach your tilth when or how ye will; but do some good act for your souls beforehand; and fear Allah.” Quran 2-223 – Quran is very liberal more than you thought? 😉
Sex is such an important factor of life that is under-presented in a decent way to the public and exploited and commercialized a great deal allover the world. sometimes I think humanity needs a new sexual revolution to respect and appreciate sex as it should be.