6 From age of despair to window of opportunity? Reframing women’s sexuality in later life in the Middle East and North Africa
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Shereen El Feki
Abstract
This chapter explores a largely overlooked area within a taboo topic: older women’s sexuality in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Focusing on research on menopause in Tunisia, Turkey and Iran, the chapter highlights historically rooted patriarchal constraints on women’s sexuality within the region (often based on selective interpretations of Islam) and, simultaneously, how (some) women are beginning to speak out, especially in the newer in-between spaces of social media, on a range of related and ‘controversial’ issues connected with sexuality. Research shows a similar range of responses to menopause in the three countries varying according to older women’s class and education, from those reflecting traditional framings of loss (of fertility, attractiveness and desire) to those expressing liberation from fear of conception (or even unsatisfying sex), which can reflect feminist articulations of women’s pleasure. Even in the former narrative, sexual loss can be compensated by increased value and authority accorded older women. However, health services in MENA, dominated by reductionist ideas of menopause as dysfunction, remain poorly equipped to support older (menopausal) women, and require a sea-change – including better education of both physicians and patients and greater involvement of male partners – in order to address their patients’ sexual and emotional needs.
Abstract
This chapter explores a largely overlooked area within a taboo topic: older women’s sexuality in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Focusing on research on menopause in Tunisia, Turkey and Iran, the chapter highlights historically rooted patriarchal constraints on women’s sexuality within the region (often based on selective interpretations of Islam) and, simultaneously, how (some) women are beginning to speak out, especially in the newer in-between spaces of social media, on a range of related and ‘controversial’ issues connected with sexuality. Research shows a similar range of responses to menopause in the three countries varying according to older women’s class and education, from those reflecting traditional framings of loss (of fertility, attractiveness and desire) to those expressing liberation from fear of conception (or even unsatisfying sex), which can reflect feminist articulations of women’s pleasure. Even in the former narrative, sexual loss can be compensated by increased value and authority accorded older women. However, health services in MENA, dominated by reductionist ideas of menopause as dysfunction, remain poorly equipped to support older (menopausal) women, and require a sea-change – including better education of both physicians and patients and greater involvement of male partners – in order to address their patients’ sexual and emotional needs.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Thanks and acknowledgements v
- Contents vii
- Notes on editors and contributors ix
- Series editors’ introduction xv
- Foreword xxv
- Introduction to the volume: themes, issues and chapter synopses 1
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In/visibility and ambivalence
- Under the orhni: intimacy and near-invisibility among older Indo-Trinidadian queer menKrystal Nandini Ghisyawan and Marcus Kissoon 21
- Older kinnars, ageism and sexuality during the COVID-19 pandemic 38
- Doing complex intimacy in the later life of Chinese gay men in Hong Kong 54
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Women questioning age/ing intergenerationally and intragenerationally
- Deep within the eye of the beheld: exploring hidden accounts of intimacy in the lives of older Indian women in urban Malaysia 75
- From age of despair to window of opportunity? Reframing women’s sexuality in later life in the Middle East and North Africa 93
- Lost voices of Partition: carrying gender, nation and femininity across the life course 115
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Agency through fantasy, erotic tales and pleasure
- Sexual fantasies and older, Indigenous Purépecha women: sociocultural constraints and possibilities 139
- Indigenous elders as sexual agents through storytelling as a queer and decolonial practice in ‘Canada’ 157
- Sex, intimacy and older life in Muslim contexts 174
- Reflections: themes and issues emerging from the volume 192
- Index 209
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Thanks and acknowledgements v
- Contents vii
- Notes on editors and contributors ix
- Series editors’ introduction xv
- Foreword xxv
- Introduction to the volume: themes, issues and chapter synopses 1
-
In/visibility and ambivalence
- Under the orhni: intimacy and near-invisibility among older Indo-Trinidadian queer menKrystal Nandini Ghisyawan and Marcus Kissoon 21
- Older kinnars, ageism and sexuality during the COVID-19 pandemic 38
- Doing complex intimacy in the later life of Chinese gay men in Hong Kong 54
-
Women questioning age/ing intergenerationally and intragenerationally
- Deep within the eye of the beheld: exploring hidden accounts of intimacy in the lives of older Indian women in urban Malaysia 75
- From age of despair to window of opportunity? Reframing women’s sexuality in later life in the Middle East and North Africa 93
- Lost voices of Partition: carrying gender, nation and femininity across the life course 115
-
Agency through fantasy, erotic tales and pleasure
- Sexual fantasies and older, Indigenous Purépecha women: sociocultural constraints and possibilities 139
- Indigenous elders as sexual agents through storytelling as a queer and decolonial practice in ‘Canada’ 157
- Sex, intimacy and older life in Muslim contexts 174
- Reflections: themes and issues emerging from the volume 192
- Index 209
