"Anthropological studies about 'Arab sexuality' are used not only to defend the sexual and human 'rights' of Arabs by Western benefactors and their local representatives, but also, by the U.S. military and war planners, to violate them. The primary study used for this latter effort was Orientalist Raphael Patai’s The Arab Mind, first published in 1973. Patai explains how while Western societies suffer from guilt because their individuals have a conscience, Arab societies suffer mainly from 'shame.' ... Following the revelations of American systematic physical and sexual torture of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison, veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh revealed that the view that 'Arabs are particularly vulnerable to sexual humiliation became a talking point among pro-war Washington conservatives in the months before the March, 2003, invasion of Iraq.' According to Hersh, America’s neocons learned of such a 'vulnerability' from Patai’s The Arab Mind. Hersh quoted his source that the book, was 'the bible of the neocons on Arab behavior.' Hersh’s source asserts that in the discussions of the neocons, two themes emerged: 'One, that Arabs only understand force and, two, that the biggest weakness of Arabs is shame and humiliation.'

... The sexual dynamic that insistently characterizes imperial relations, whether of violating or defending human rights, are therefore informed by the same type of subjectivity. Indeed the very same discourse that calls for the 'liberation' of Arabs from dictators and 'defends' them against human rights violations is what allows both imperial ventures and human rights activism. Even the data on the Arabs necessary for imperial conquest and human rights activism derives from the same anthropological and Orientalist sources. The epistemic collusion is total, even though the political implications are articulated differently. Thus it would seem that Orientalist fascination with the sexual desires and lives of Arabs has led Westerners over the last two centuries to seek them out as an outlet for frustrated Western desires or to condemn and flinch from even discussing such uncivilized sexual practices—or, more recently, to participate in them. This participation involves ironically giving Arabs the 'pleasure' they are said to enjoy by Orientalism through sexual torture or by assimilating them into the 'liberatory' agenda of Western sexual minorities. What all these responses do is consolidate the civilizational epistémè that informs Western views of the Arabs, and what they do not do is question the superiority of the Western notion of the human.

... Bruce Dunne participates in this academic discourse with his essay 'Power and Sexuality in the Middle East.' ... Dunne’s approach is to demonstrate how 'Middle Eastern' society, unlike Western society, is one where non-'egalitarian sexual relations' predominate and where sexuality 'conforms to a particular notion of gender.' ... Thus, he calls for 'queering' the 'Middle East' to put an end to these conditions. This type of anthropology by Dunne (who incidentally knows no Arabic, as evidenced by the lack of any Arabic sources in his work—his native informants notwithstanding) calls less into question its (and his) conception of the other and more its (and his) conception of its mythical idealized self—one that is incapable of seeing the other except as a projection of all that it is not and that it does not contain, namely, nonegalitarian sexual relations, the oppressive rule of men, 'gender-based' sexuality, patriarchy, and so forth. This mythological 'West' as reference remains the organizing principle of all such discussions."

Joseph Massad, Desiring Arabs (2007)

Even if it’s bad writing! Write Anyway! Just keep writing or drawing or creating however you want! You don’t have to share it but someone will probably enjoy your art!! Dooo iiit!

seems my camera is defective, so the next few rolls of film i get back are gonna be messed up. but that said, here's a few shots from Roxborough State Park I still felt were worth sharing.

I AM 17. I HAVE LOT TO SAY. by Jackson Holbert