Yahia Lababidi is a writer and poet. His first book will be coming out in August. See www.sun-rising-poetry.com/signposts.htm

“How nicely that bitch Sensuality knows how to beg for a piece of the spirit, when a piece of flesh is denied her,” spits philosopher Nietzsche (in a section titled “Of Chastity”) in his Thus Spake Zarathustra. Which is to say, drives denied a natural outlet will not quietly die, rather cunningly exit in masquerade. In Egypt, on account of a volatile cocktail –unequal parts societal, political and economic- aggravated by a people in the grip of a spiritual crisis, sexual repression is rampant and thus it’s expression has gotten considerably out of hand. Faced with a desperate situation at home, in an unexemplary international context, Egyptians have chosen to cut off their noses to spite their face by insisting upon an identity that is not theirs.

Much of the new mor ality is fueled by a kind of Islamic panic, quite foreign to the laid back Egyptian character. It is the difference between a quiet confidence and a loud insecurity. Having defiantly accentuated a superficial religiosity, they downplay their natural strengths and exaggerate their weaknesses. As a general rule, extreme positions are to be mistrusted. Here, extreme Islamic interpretations are buttressed by people’s insecurities so that seemingly innocuous everyday activities acquire sexual connotations, such as the slap of slippers on a woman’s feet, the smacking of chewing gum, or the smoking of a cigarette.

The heat on an abandoned public seat, for example, is to be avoided. Wait a few minutes before taking it lest you are aroused by the phantom ass. Or how about this. A man goes to a sheikh and asks him if television is forbidden. Depends on how you view it, replies the sheikh. To watch soccer, the man says. Alright, provided you are not ogling the players’ thighs. The supposedly hot-blooded, heterosexual male returns home and gives away his TV set. This is no joke.

Such stories are not as rare as one would hope. With the sexes increasingly segregated, when they play and when they pray, unsurprisingly the air is charged, and mutual mistrust mounting. It used to be that to hold the elevator door open for a woman was considered gentlemanly, but now it’s not enough. If the woman is monakabba’ (veiled from head to foot in black with only her eyes peeking out, and gloved – a style of dress not uncommon in modern Cairo) close quarters are considered a threat. So that after holding the elevator door you must step aside and let her enter alone (or with her veiled sisters) for fear of what? a frantic quickie between the ground and second floors? What’s more, even shaking a veiled woman’s hand has become an awkward proposition.

But why invaginate one palm and make a phallus of the other? This is not religion, and certainly not spirituality. Yet there is textual support for such (mis)behavior if you are looking for pretexts. ‘If a man and a woman are alone in one place, the third party present is the devil,’ the Prophet Muhammad reportedly said. But, why drag the devil into this, for God’s sake? Why couldn’t that ‘third party present’ be friendship, or disinterest, or one’s own thoughts, at the very least?

“ Paradise”, as a symbol, represents what is denied in this life. To the thinker, this means the certainty of answers. But to the masses, it is more literal. Islamic Heaven is promise of a sensual haven -sex and drinks- rivers of wine, eternal virgins for men, long-lasting studs for women, and ‘perpetually fresh’ young males of indeterminate preference. There is a joke about the woman who fell off a balcony onto a truck of bananas. Thinking she’d died and gone to heaven, she kept her eyes shut and sighed, “One at a time, O believers, one at a time.”

Matters are further complicated in a culture that discourages premarital sex, and where a girl’s virginity is governed by a kind of gift shop mor ality –break it, you buy it. Then consider that serious economic difficulties prevent most couples from getting married. With female flesh under wraps, and no promise of release in the near future, sensu ality spills into unexpected spaces. In Cairo, the human need for physical contact manifests in intense same-sex intimacy.

Not the least bit unusual to encounter men holding hands, pinkies interlocked, hugging and kissing, while calling each other unusually sweet names: sokkar (sugar), a’assall (honey) or rohealbi (my heart’s soul). Equally common to witness men affectionately wrestling like scrapping puppies, or playfully grabbing each other like testosterone-maddened teens, well into middle age. What is at play here is not unlike what Freud terms “polymorphous perversity” or the infant’s indiscriminate total responsiveness. A stray, semi-conscious desire ricocheting throughout their bodies as well as the streets.

The advantage of tailoring religious principles to suit one’s biases and needs, is the liberties assumed in interpretation, within claustrophobic parameters. For example, while the number of girls taking the veil is on the rise, so is the artful dodge of what the idea(l) of the veil stands for: modesty. So, we get flocks of morally incomprehensible teenage girls ‘fashionably’ veiled and wildly overcompensating. With faces heavily made-up, as though colored by numbers, their ensembles are far from modest: funky, figure-hugging tops and bottoms, eye-catching accessories and chunky shoes.

Married, veiled women are not without their secret pleasures, judging by the proliferation of lingerie stores in downtown Cairo. The neighborhood is littered with them, brazenly displaying the kind of underwear that in other countries you’d only find in sexshops: glow in the dark, feathered, sequined, transparent, you name it. And, no one blinks; the way no one blinks in Europe or the US at seeing exposed flesh, tummies or inguinal creases. Yet try showing an arm or leg around here, if you’re a girl or a boy, but especially if you’re a girl and you’ll experience all the attention reserved for an unwanted visiting celebrity.

“We can do without the money these foreigners bring, during the month of Ramadan” one shabbily dressed pedestrian grumbled loudly. The unwanted guests in question were an innocent-looking collection of European tourists in long shorts and cut-off sleeves. The only thing that was sizzling hot was the temperature. Yet it was not always so. See films stars of a few decades ago –happily prancing around in minis and bikinis- or hear rueful stories from members of past generations to know how open-minded and cosmopolitan Egypt once was.

El mamnua’a marghoub, the forbidden is coveted, goes an Egyptian saying - also the oldest human truth. When very little is permitted, everything is eroticized. Take the example of a malnourished, sun-crazed soldier in heavy black uniform, guarding an embassy in between naps, and leaning against a machine gun that he handles like a plow. “Oh boy,” he lustily shouts to no one in particular, “did you see that girl? She’ll be a rocket when she grows up!” The girl in question is a prepubescent child, and it’s just like that bitch sensu ality to anticipate the femme fatale in the infant.

If sex is hard to come by for most Egyptians in this forbidding climate, so is regularly eating meat on their lean incomes. Which is why calling a woman mozza, or a prime cut of lamb, is the ultimate compliment guys can conceive of paying a sexy woman. There is a joke about a blind man who pays someone to get him a 50L.E. hooker. When the prostitute arrives, the blind man feels her up and says, “I’m not complaining, but L.E. 20 worth of meat would do the trick for me.” If love is blind, then lust must be deaf, dumb and blind.

Where sex is on the mind, aphrodisiacs are not far behind. Sea food, whose cost is also not within average means, is thought to improve potency, here; while shrimps double up as the poor man’s Viagra (several popular sandwich chains carry “Viagra sandwiches” - basically just shrimps and mayo).

If there is an inherent link between food and sexu ality, it is made apparent in TV commercials, where a generally starved imagination is fed all sorts of silly teases. To note the unreserved glee with which a bunch of dolled-up girls are dancing around, one would never suspect the source of their bliss was - ghee. But then commercials are the stuff fantasies are made of, male fantasies, and women are never more frolicsome then in the kitchen, as they feed each other between giggling fits and prepare meals for their famished and expectant husbands. Second to the kitchen is the bedroom, of course. One classic ad, for blankets features three flavors of foreign women - blond, brunette and red head- all writhing suggestively under the covers and inordinately happy to be warm at last.

But this is soft porn. The hard stuff is to be found on the streets. For the past few years, cheap CD copies of American movies are sold on street corners, with all the hustle and bustle of porn trafficking. This is because these Hollywood blockbusters are ‘uncut’, unlike the copies shown in movie theatres. One vendor, let us call him ‘King Leer’, plays his part overly well: labored breathing, eyes everywhere, all sly winks and nudges. It is customary for him to be rubbing himself as he congratulates me on a ‘good choice,’ or recommends one himself. I remember a family approaching him. The woman and child maintained a safe distance, with the man of the house shielding them as he bravely negotiated the bestial business of hunting a good movie.

As these movies are sold illegally, every so often when the dealers intuit police presence they will lift their trays and run, so that the downtown air is frequently aswarm with alley-seeking vendors. No more, however, since the streets have since been ‘cleaned up’ of these perceived threats to our delicate public mor ality. Which leaves the option of satellite television. But this too, is viewed with complicated appreciation.

Following the devastating earthquake in Turkey some three years back, which claimed tens of thousands of lives, one heard that this was what they ‘deserved’ for broadcasting their racy satellite TV. More recently another natural disaster, Tsunami, has been given ethical accents by fanatic Islamists posing as disinterested scientists. The natural catastrophe that claimed perhaps a quarter million lives and left Southeast Asia ravaged is just punishment, we are told, for the decadent lifestyles of the Swedes (the largest number of fat alities).

Another alternative for Egypt’s criminally repressed has been to wait for the annual International Film Festival, a chaotic affair marked by storming crowds and raging hormones. Like the International Experimental Theatre Festival, the selection and scheduling is, in the loosest sense of the term, experimental. Venues and film titles are announced only hours before the event, as though it were a rave, and then postponed or cancelled, without explanation.

And most people aren’t fussy when it comes to details like plot summaries, either. Of paramount importance are the number of nudity scenes, while the entry’s country is a bonus. So that, say, ‘4 scenes-Holland’ is shorthand for a good time, with a stronghold of kids and country folk in the front rows who (you can be certain) have never heard a word of Dutch uttered in their lives (except perhaps in the previous festival). More than once, a ‘scheduled film’ has been cancelled, only to have them slap on the film whose namesake best summarizes the entire affair: Basic Instinct. No one complained, as a matter of fact, it was a packed house.

Of course, the last frontier is the Internet, for virtual dating and visual stimulation.

But the Saudis have gotten wise to that, too. It used to be that women could not travel to Saudi Arabia without an intimate male chaperone (husband, brother, etc…) Now, according to a recent fatwa, Saudi women cannot surf the net either, without a male chaperone who is intimately familiar with their ‘lust and cunning.’

Literature under restrictive regimes has tended to develop a flair for allegory, confessing in code, or through the use of symbolism. Similarly, in repressive societies, means of indirect communication tend to thrive. Egyptians have a gift for this sort of thing. Past masters at innuendo, they deftly employ double meanings to get past the censors on stage and in life. Slyly they vent their sexual (and political) frustrations in jokes, songs, and video clips, that manage to hint at everything without really saying any thing.

At the crossroads of this bristling atmosphere of stray sensu ality is the taxi-cab: that mobile den of promiscuous fantasies. Think the overwhelmed Robert DeNiro character in Taxi Driver, only with a more developed a sense of humor, and you have the Egyptian cabdriver. If they are to be believed, these incorrigible storytellers, the excesses of Roman Emperors pale in comparison to their typical passengers. With mirrors as long as dashboards, assisted by mini ones strategically, hopefully, positioned to catch something titillating, they will volunteer (without prompting) the most improbable happenings: of incestuous siblings, insatiable Africans and a tireless string of flashers.

A cabbie once insisted I examine a soiled rag he kept in his trunk as irrefutable ‘proof’’ of his sexual prowess and adventures. “Unbelievable,” another cabbie clucked out of the blue, “did you see that? Her genit alia is popping out!” Startled, I turned around. All I could see was an unassuming chubby girl wobbling along and concluded that, in addition to everything else, cab drivers must also have x-ray vision.

But, pent-up frustrations will have you seeing things and petty jealousies fan the insolent imaginings of the deprived. More often than not, a feverish fantasy life and sexual projection is at play when Egyptians see foreign couples, or locals if they dare, holding hands. Unconsciously, they embellish the picture, with their own thwarted longings and perverted cravings. This applies to all activities that the average Egyptian is excluded from; so that they cannot conceive, say, of a mixed crowd spending an innocent weekend at the beach or a night out dancing, without an eruption of dark desire coloring the entire affair sordid and depraved.     In 1996, a bizarre story of alleged devil worshipping among Egyptian youth had the entire nation in paroxysms for months. This was accompanied by a deplorable media feeding frenzy exciting people’s deepest fears and wildest suspicions, with sensational accounts of orgiastic rites, digging up corpses, and drinking rat’s blood.   So-called “mainstream publications” exercised no restraint in their lurid coverage of this story, culminating with a newly-appointed Mufti reporting in the Al-AhramWeekly that the youths could be forgiven if they renounced their beliefs. "But if they persist in their sin, we should carry out the penalty prescribed by Islamic law"—that is, death. The hysteria eventually subsided after the police finally released the devil’s alleged disciples. Turns out, the dozens arrested and demonized were mainly kids in black T-shirts whose only sin was a love for heavy metal music. 

In After Zen, Jan willem van de Wetering’s thoughtful and humorous account of his time at a Zen Monastery, we meet some real life monks behaving like adolescents in an all- boys boarding school. “Girls threw rocks into the … courtyard with invitations attached with red ribbons. Monks climbed the walls at night.” A little later, we learn from the gently-disillusioned author that “Pam-pam was what the monks called the Western-type sandwiches I sometimes prepared in my room. The way the sliced bread got cut, buttered and smacked together reminded them of what they went after when they climbed the temple walls at night…”

This is an uncanny echo of the eroticization of the quotidian in the country-wide monastery of Egypt: the slapping of slippers, the smacking of chewing gum, etc..

Yet, although Jan’s Zen monks and the morally-embattled Egyptians are not subject to the same cultural, religious, or philosophical manacles, their truths agree with each other. Which points to larger human truths, i.e. the incredible lengths imagination will go to conjure up what is forbidden, as well as this deeper wisdom, also from After Zen, “[that] the sex drive does not get sublimated spiritually…sexual longing is programmed into human genes; frustrate it and it becomes demonic.”

Which is to say that these intolerable tensions -not only unsuited to human nature, but which do violence to it- cannot last. Consequently, nowadays, some people are having their religious cake and eating it too, since the Mufti has recently sanctioned a new type of marriage -born two years ago in sexually segregated Saudi Arabia, Missyar. Like the convenient Urfi marriage, a legal and increasingly popular Islamic union, the recently sanctioned type also does not have to be formally announced.

Unlike the Urfi marriage, however, the new and improved version carries no obligations whatsoever, but is an official/religious seal on a marriage ‘in passing,’ or enpassant (the origin of the word missyar is passerby). No doubt recognizing that strangled impulses only develop stronger muscles, the Mufti justified this controversial marriage by saying it is intended to protect female virtue. An ancient Greek tragedist, Sophocles, re alized (at least half of) this equation centuries ago, when he likened the male sex drive to being, ‘chained to a lunatic’. Suppressed, it becomes quite simply, lunatic.