Sex Manual for Muslims: Birth Control, Sexting, BDSM and More Covered in Groundbreaking New Book
Adventurousness in the bedroom isn't exactly cultivated within the Islamic faith, especially for women. Muslim culture encourages women to feel guilty about sex and to take a passive attitude toward their own sexuality. As a result, Muslim sex is often male-centric, and mutually satisfying sexual relationships are less common in Muslim marriages than they might be among couples who were raised in less socially conservative cultures.
A U.S.-born Muslim woman is looking to change these preconceived notions about sex with a new book, The Muslimah Sex Manual: A Halal Guide to Mind Blowing Sex.
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Released last week, the book—whose author uses the pen name Umm Muladhat to remain anonymous—offers a wide array of advice on how Muslim couples can work together to foster a healthy and satisfying sexual relationship. "I put an emphasis on having sex only with your spouse, but having the full range of sexual experiences with that spouse," Muladhat told The Guardian. "Islamically, there's an emphasis on enjoying physical relationships within the context of marriage, not just for procreation. It is the wife's right that her husband satisfy her sexually."
The book also aims to dispel myths about sex often held by Muslims, such as the idea that the only way to learn how to be good in bed is to defy Muslim law before marriage, that pornography can be used to learn how to be good in bed, that the answer to good sex lies in women's magazines and that Muslim men will lose respect for a woman who is imaginative in bed. Muladhat does everything from offering practical advice to quoting scholars to prove that it's totally fine for Muslim couples to take measures to make sex more enjoyable.
On her website, Muladhat details the inspiration for the book—one of her friends whose nascent sex life sputtered shortly after she got married. "She knew the mechanics," Muladhat wrote. "Insert penis into vagina. Climax. Withdraw. But she didn't know how to make her husband yearn for her in bed. She didn't know what he liked. She didn't even know what she liked! They had begun eagerly, but after a few weeks, realized that neither of them was truly enjoying having sex with each other."
Muladhat decided to educate her friend on how to have a "robust" sex life. It worked. "I wrote down everything I told her on a Word document and emailed it to her," Muladhat wrote. "She shared it with her friends who were newly married. They shared it with their friends. Before long, word trickled back to me that people were asking me to write a book on the subject."
The resulting book includes chapters on body image, genital hygiene, sexting, handjobs, what to say during sex, BDSM, sex in public and more. Since publication, the book has drawn praise from Muslim women's organizations, and interest from Muslim men.
"I've received dozens of emails from men asking if I had any plans to write a companion book to teach them how to please their wives in bed," Muladhat said. "I've taken that into consideration and plan to write a follow-up if this book is successful."
