The Virginity Trap in the Middle East

Framed as a social critique, The Virginity Trap discusses the culturally entrenched virginity cult in Middle Eastern societies. This work argues that, apart from being an unachievable and discriminatory cultural practice, the virginity taboo has negative and destructive implications for the social construction of honor, sexuality, romance, marriage, gender relationships, and gender roles. The author also suggests that this practice conditions people to a passive and frustrating social existence and encourages society toward profligacy of human resources. Forsaking the utopian myth of female virginity and delinking the hymen from sexuality and honor could both improve social ills and increase productivity in this important region.

Table of Contents:
Contents Preface Introduction 1. Incarcerating Honor 2. Virginity Cult 3. Internalizing Shame 4. Hymen Mystique 5. Virginity Hypocrisy 6. Virginity and Body Discourse 7. Virginity and Body Mutilation 8. Virginity and Asexuality 9. Virginity and Premarital Intimacy 10. Ritual of Defloration 11. Rewarding Virginity Conclusion Selected Bibliography Index

About the Author :
David Ghanim, PhD, is an independent scholar from the Middle East living in Sweden. His publications include Gender and Violence in the Middle East and Iraq's Dysfunctional Democracy. The author may be contacted at davidghanim@gmail.com.

Review :
'This is a scholarly yet passionate call for a genuine Arab Spring, one that will free both men and women from an obsessive, unnatural, and destructive definition of family and male honor rooted in a cult of female virginity and fidelity. David Ghanim's work is humane, compassionate, bold, and forward-thinking. It deserves a wide, global audience. The ideas set forth here are even more relevant now precisely because the Middle East is in such profound turmoil.' -Phyllis Chesler, Emerita Professor of Psychology at City University of New York, USA, and author of Women and Madness and An American Bride in Kabul 'A timely addition to scholarship on Muslim women, The Virginity Trap is an intellectually through book on why women's sexual conduct defines every area of their lives. The study contextualizes gender, sexuality, romantic love, and marriage in the Middle East. The author argues that the fear and shame surrounding the loss of virginity prior to marriage condition women to internalize patriarchal control of their sexuality and collaborate with men to restrain and discipline their sexual conduct and life in general.' -Haideh Moghissi, Professor of Sociology and Equity Studies, York University, Canada