BECAUSE so many Muslim men have their first sexual encounters with other males, they are inclined to bugger their wives out of ignorance, says Wedad Lootah, who has caused outrage in the Middle East with a frank book entitled Top Secret: Sexual Guidance for Married Couples.
In her book, published earlier this year, the Dubai marriage counselor celebrates the female orgasm, confronts taboo topics in Islam like homosexuality, and urges Arabs to transcend the backward traditions that limit their sexual happiness.
Lootah, right, in her one-woman black tent, dispenses sexual advice
According to the New York Times, the book has drawn praise from some liberals and death threats from conservatives, who say she is guilty of blasphemy or worse.
Said Ms Lootah:
People have said I was crazy, that I was straying from Islam, that I should be killed. Even my family ask why I must talk about this. I say: ‘These problems happen every day and should not be ignored. This is the reality we are living’.
She is not a liberal by Western standards. One of the themes of her book is the danger of anal sex and homosexuality generally, not because of AIDS but because they are banned by the Koran. But her openness about the issue was itself a shock to many.
In Saudi Arabia and other countries where the genders are rigorously separated, many men have their first sexual experiences with other men, which affects their attitudes toward sex in marriage, Ms. Lootah said.
Many men who had anal sex with men before marriage want the same thing with their wives, because they don’t know anything else. This is one reason we need sex education in our schools.
She is also emphatic about the importance of female sexual pleasure, and the inequity of many Arab marriages in that respect. One of the cases that impelled her to write the book, she said, was a 52-year-old client who had grandchildren but had never known sexual pleasure with her husband.
Finally, she discovered orgasm! Imagine, all that time she did not know.
Publishing the book, she notes, was a difficult choice. Her father supported her, but other family members sometimes wondered why she had to be so public about it all. After it was published a man called her office phone and threatened to kill her. Other threats appeared on the Internet.
She brushes them off, saying she has declined an offer of protection from the government. Besides, she adds, educating the public is worth the risk.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
June 8th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Those who claim that society needs religion in order to function need to explain why the more religious a society is the more dysfuncional it is.
June 8th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Well bugger me, who'd have thought.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
"In Saudi Arabia and other countries where the genders are rigorously separated, many men have their first sexual experiences with other men"
Thsi is one hell of a statement. What evidence is there of this?
June 8th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
"In Saudi Arabia and other countries where the genders are rigorously separated, many men have their first sexual experiences with other men"
This is one hell of a statement. What evidence is there of this?
June 9th, 2009 at 3:17 am
Actually this is a good thing because its obvious that those that are making the rules for sexual conduct are impotent elderly men.
Maybe in a few years we'll see skintight, latex Burkah's!
June 9th, 2009 at 5:36 am
It might help if those burqas had "front" and "back" written on them
June 9th, 2009 at 8:18 am
"……educating the public" now there's a novelty for muslim countries.
Ignorance breeds fear and superstition, which is just what religion wants and does. So no surprise muslim men and women have problems with sex; they still manage to breed prolifically when they eventually get it right though.
June 9th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Maybe anal sex is used as a form of birth control.
June 9th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
It doesn't seem to be working does it!
June 9th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
It is informative that the response of certain Islamists to anyone saying something that they disagree with is to issue death threats. Personally if someone says something that I disagree with I am left with two options. One is to admit that they may have a point and that I may actually be mistaken. The other is to skewer them with my rapier like logic and laugh as they crash and burn. The idea of killing them or threatening to never crosses my mind.
June 9th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Stonyground. How come you never share your rapier like logic with the rest of us?
'Tis most unfair!
June 10th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Ah um well er… I never need to use it on you guys do I?
OK so it probably less resembles a rapier, more like one of those red and black inflatable hammers, the point is it is better to shoot someone down with words than murder them like these people seem to want to do.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:06 am
Sort of like gimp suits?
June 11th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
touche'
August 9th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Why is it that most of the comments seem to equate Islam with the threats from males towards this author when she too can quote the Koran as her authority. Which is representative? It is worth looking into the teachings of Islam regarding sex and especially foreplay and gratification. Europe has gone from denying sex exists to a spiral of deviant perversians, whilst the Muslim world has gone from sexual liberation and equality to FGM, underground homosexuality, stagnant subjugative marriages and Victorian prudism. The reality is the further the West has gone from Christianity the more "enlightened" we have become, whilst the further the Muslims are from their actual scriptures the more animal they are.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Hi All,
This lady has done a very great job… She should be awarded for this and religious scholors should understand the current situation of the culture and should try to eliminate this by giving sex education in schools and colleges…