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May 03, 2011
Other than Ben Laden: Awrah, ownership & Turkish Playboy covergirls, liberation porn
As the All Ben Laden show is boring, I turn my attention to a good old Aqoul topic, Muslim sex: Playboy's Muslim Cover Girl: Is Sila Sahin Good for Women? - The Daily Beast, which is a very silly article positing that a German-Turkish woman's German Playboy cover represents an interesting event for Muslim women.
Actress Sila Sahin has sparked outrage as the first Turkish woman to pose for Playboy—but perhaps her rebellion will inspire other Muslims to define modesty and honor for themselves, says Asra Q. Nomani.
German-Muslim actress Sila Sahin, 25, is causing quite a stir as the first Turkish woman to undress for Playboy, posing in the May issue of the magazine's German edition. "For me, these pictures are an act of liberation from the cultural constraints of my childhood," the star of the German soap opera Good Times, Bad Times told Playboy. "I have tried to please everybody for too long. With these images I want to show young Turkish women that it is OK to live the way they are, that it is not cheap to show skin, that you should pursue your goals instead of bowing down to others."
I'm not a fan of porn as a symbol of empowerment, but as a Muslim woman, hearing divinely sanctioned mandates all my life about what a good Muslim girl looks like, I can understand why Sahin has responded to our community sanctions about honor, shame and modesty by stripping—and why members of her family have ostracized her for it. The battle over the Muslim woman's body is a debate over a simple Islamic concept: awrah (or awra), an Arabic word that refers to the zones of women and men forbidden from the public eye. While it's an equal opportunity word, it's the excuse some Muslim men use to subordinate, silence, segregate and cloak women from Afghanistan to Seattle, Washington.
And in fact, Sahin's decision to pose for the nudie mag may mark an important milestone on Muslim women's path to defining awrah for themselves. Recently, France banned the veil—in part because it perpetuates the notion that a woman's body is forbidden. Sahin's exhibitionism takes this concept to an extreme. Yet similar to how American women responded to the sexually repressive mores of the 1950s with the sexual revolution of the 1960s, only to find a happy medium of sexual freedom in the decades that followed, perhaps acts like Sahin's will prove liberating.
While I have no criticism of the posing, frankly the idea that there is symbolism for Muslim women seems rather bizarre - and given that models like Iman (Somali) have long been present, I find it hard to see an impact... Although to be uncharitable, perhaps for Anglophone South Asian origin authors, black African Muslim models and Maghrebine models (and porn stars) don't really count.
While I have no criticism of the posing, frankly the idea that there is symbolism for Muslim women seems rather bizarre - and given that models like Iman (Somali) have long been present, I find it hard to see an impact... Although to be uncharitable, perhaps for Anglophone South Asian origin authors, black African Muslim models and Maghrebine models (and porn stars) don't really count.
Of course, I may be jaded from my long years in the Maghreb, where on beaches where only working class Maghrebines go, one finds plenty of chicas wearing the whole range of clothes from djellaba to French bikinis. I remain a bit irritated, however, that writing on women in the Muslim world remains rather dominated by a lop-sided focus on the conservative side, and in particular by the practices of the Gulf, and the AfPak region, and ignores - for example - the rather different habits of Africa Islam, either Maghrebine or sub Saharan.
Posted by The Lounsbury at May 3, 2011 07:31 PM
Filed Under: Gender Issues
, Islam General
, MENA Fringe
, MENA Region General
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Comments
Apparently it's a cultural novelty when done for Playboy, but not for GQ where bin-Laden's niece posed nude in 2005.
I think that's because in regional honor codes, Maxim and Esquire outrank say Penthouse or Playboy because the Pashtunwali and Islamic Hadiths differentiate between Turks and Saudis and different magazine sales rates and whether or not the nudity happens in a year that's a multiple of 5. And no Muslim-raised woman has ever posed nude ever, despite those satellite videos one could find in the Middle East in the 1990s.
This is one of the stupidest pile-on publicity-seeking media non-event opportunist stuff in a while.
Posted by: matthew h at May 4, 2011 07:14 AM
Not only is it still bin-Laden news in a way, but it is also about USA USA USA. Miss USA, in fact. (perhaps not "work-safe") The idea that the woman in Germany is some revolutionary novelty of significance is sheer self-promoting ignorant-stereotype-swallowing hokum.
And I do realize that yes I know entirely too much about Near Eastern-descended women and photo erotica.
But it's about cultural history awareness I assure you.
Posted by: matthew h at May 4, 2011 07:23 AM
Yeah, this is much ado about nothing. The recent Carl's Jr./Hardee's ads featuring Miss Turkey are far more liberating/potentially offensive in that they are both stunning and completely mainstream. These ads are on TV during prime time and the restaurants have full-size carboard images like that below. They are the latest in a series of what have become known as "slutburger" ads.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0147e38c52ce970b-600wi
And, yes, that really is the real Miss Turkey.
Posted by: at May 4, 2011 10:35 PM
Yet similar to how American women responded to the sexually repressive mores of the 1950s with the sexual revolution of the 1960s, only to find a happy medium of sexual freedom in the decades that followed, perhaps acts like Sahin's will prove liberating.
The evolution should be interesting, as I remember Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, CA, on summer nights in 1969, it was common to see young women not wearing bras.
What's funny is that it has survived as mainly a meme of 'bra burning' when it was a phase of 'not wearing bras'.
Posted by: The Dark Avenger at May 7, 2011 08:41 PM
