Review of 'Sexe et mensonges' by Leïla Slimani

Review: Slimani, Leïla. Sexe et mensonges.

Leïla Slimani’s first non-fiction book Sexe et mensonges: La Vie Sexuelle au Maroc (Sex and Lies: Sexual life in Morocco) is a collection of essays based on the interviews the author conducted with Moroccan women of different ages and classes, as well as on the analysis of social and political events, laws, art works, and media reports on (repressed) sexuality in contemporary Moroccan society. Sexe et mensonges was first published in 2017 in French,[1] translated into Arabic in 2019, and into English in 2020 as Sex and lies: True Stories of Women’s Intimate Lives in the Arab World. The book is divided into eighteen chapters/essays, the core of which are interviews with women who wanted to remain anonymous, but also with public figures such as feminist writer and journalist Fedwa Misk, Islamic feminist Asma Lambert, and with men such as Nabil Ayouch, a filmmaker who made a documentary on prostitution, and Mustapha, a policeman with 25 years of experience in law enforcement.

Through personal stories, the book offers a detailed overview of the harsh consequences of the state ban on extramarital sexual relations, including homosexual practices. In addition, it showcases Moroccan society’s public morality that allows everything if it is kept secret, nurturing the “culture of silence” concerning sexuality, female pleasure, abortion, STDs, sexual violence, and harassment. According to the testimonies, among the harshest consequences of the morality legislation are prison sentences for the most vulnerable citizens (the poor, women, LGBT persons) who were caught having extramarital sexual relations; unsafe illegal abortions; unreported cases of rape, which occasionally force the victims to marry their rapists; public humiliation and exclusion; denial of the basic rights and citizenship to children born out of marriage, which ultimately leads to the most extreme consequences such as infanticide or suicide. Among these circumstances, Slimani’s interlocutors navigate their secret, but rich sexual lives, being constantly at risk of losing their social position and freedom. Their testimonies are often deeply saddening, but also witty and humorous. Most of them stress society’s hypocrisy, pointing out that the system promotes the exploitation and commercialization of the female body while pretending to support “virtue”.[2] Slimani leads the reader through these stories bringing different voices into conversation by providing examples from Moroccan public life, scholarly articles, and her personal experiences.

From the beginning of the book, the author’s position is clear. Slimani self-identifies as a middle-class person from a liberal background. This self-identification is important, as the author sees it as the source of her values and privilege within Moroccan society. Namely, Slimani argues that her background allowed her not only to nurture self-respect, bodily autonomy, and a belief that hatred, violence, and misogyny cannot be justified by any religion, but also to remain safe.[3] From that position, she draws attention to the class dimension of sexual repression, arguing that the poorest are the mostly affected by the morality law,[4] as law enforcement is selective and arbitrary, and targets the most vulnerable citizens. Importantly, she further argues that people who are not as privileged as her in terms of education, class, and family background, nor raised according to “liberal values”, can be just as well aware of their rights:

But I have to say that in Morocco I have met hundreds of people who have not had all this and who, nonetheless, believe that we should live and let live, that every human being has a right to dignity and to safety. [5]

By pointing out the class dimension, Slimani argues that the right to dignity and safety is not an exclusive feature of middle-class morality or Western cultures, but also a right aligned with the core principles of Moroccan culture.[6]I find this claim important for understanding the different sides of public debate in Moroccan society. Namely, Slimani emphasizes the role that the binary opposition between West/modernity/“universal Enlightenment values” and “traditional” Islamic societies plays in debates about sex in Morocco. Talking from within this binary, Slimani seems to anticipate critique from both sides of the spectrum, claiming that privileged French liberal scholars will accuse her of Orientalism, reinforcement of stereotypes about Arab societies and Islamophobia, while Moroccan conservatives will accuse her of promoting “westernized decadence and liberalism of its elites.”[7] She argues that people suffering in prisons are not her Orientalist fantasies but reality, and calls for the ending of this opposition:[8]

We need to stop pitting Islam and universal Enlightenment values against each other, stop opposing Islam and equality of the sexes, Islam and sensual pleasure.[9]

While her call for dismantling this binary opposition is an important step in further building her arguments, Slimani does not problematize the values of the “liberal West”, nor middle-class morality, which sometimes leads to contradictory statements. For example, recalling the public outrage that accompanied the concert by Jennifer Lopez in 2015, who was criticized for sexually “provocative” dancing and outfit, Slimani remembers being “shocked” by the fact that Moroccan middle-class liberals called Jennifer Lopez a “whore.”[10] She further expresses similar, but affirmative shock when her housekeeper, whom she considered a conservative woman, expressed “progressive” attitudes by stating that the silence about sexuality is oppressive towards women, but also bad for Islam.[11] Unfortunately, Slimani remains “shocked”, instead of questioning the foundations of liberal middle-class morality, which has a lot in common with the “culture of silence” she argues against.

In addition to that, while her conversations with the interlocutors stress the need for emancipation, and the importance of the education of youth, especially boys, about sexual rights, and women’s rights for overcoming the challenges within Moroccan society, Slimani does not extend her critical approach to the contradictions of European societies. For example, she often makes comparisons with Europe, particularly France as a place where the challenges that Moroccan women and girls are facing are non-existent and/or hardly imaginable, without mentioning the challenges that Muslim girls and women face in France, and without addressing the oppression of women in Europe.[12] I argue that an explicit critique of middle-class morality and complexities within Europe would allow the author to build a stronger argument against the binary opposition of Western modernity/Islamic traditionalism.

Together with that, the book offers a valuable analysis of the debate on sexuality and women’s rights within Moroccan society. Slimani argues that Moroccan authorities are also ambiguous regarding the opposition of (Western) modernity vs. (Islamic) traditionalism, as testified by the psychiatrist Jalil Bennani, who participated in a series of public debates organized by Moroccan state authorities on abortion in 2015. Bennani claimed that politically liberal “modernists” were more hesitant to advocate for legal access to abortion, while “hard-line Islamists” were more open for discussion and negotiation,[13] revealing that these debates are more nuanced and complex than expected.

In addition, even though in most of the chapters Slimani takes the Enlightenment and Western liberal values as universal and non-problematic, she also provides valuable insights for critiquing these values and dismantling the binary division Western modernity/Islamic traditionalism. In the chapter “All the religions are the same when it comes to sex” Slimani analyzes the works of scholars of Islamic culture to reveal that there is a centuries-long tradition of thematizing eroticism and sensuality in Islamic literature. According to this analysis, in Islamic literature faith was not confronted with desire, but rather intertwined with it, and sexual pleasure was seen as divine, while orgasm was compared with the “delights in paradise.”[14] She argues that the arrival of “puritanical” views on sexuality coincides with the decline of political and economic power in Arab countries at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and with the region’s subsequent colonization by Europeans. According to her the imposition of puritan views primarily served as a means of prevention of sexual relations between settlers and native women.[15] Slimani points out that the Moroccan morality law that bans homosexuality originates from the French penal code that was repealed in 1982.

Further, Slimani provides important information about rich Islamic traditions that are neither conservative nor sexually repressive. She introduces the views of Avbdelwahab Bouhdiba, a scholar of sexuality, who argues that sexual freedom cannot be a copied Western model, but rather achieved through faith, relying on Islamic traditions.[16] Slimani also interviews pathologist and theology scholar Asma Lamrabet from the Centre for Women’s Studies in Islam, who goes back to close reading of Quran to support her feminist arguments. Lamrabet points out that the Quran does not deal with matters of sexuality and that virginity is not even mentioned once in the whole text. In her interpretation, women are conceptualized as free human beings in the Quran. Moreover, Lamrabet argues that over time rigidity took over the place of compassion, affection, and intimacy that were historically present in Islamic societies.[17] Lamrabet advocates for a decolonial model, rather than the Western, and points out that the liberation of women to make their own choices requires a non-hegemonic strategy, a development of a new approach.[18]  I find this chapter central to the whole book, as it offers a critical approach to the traditions, as well as possible paths for analyzing social and historical complexities instead of reinforcing hierarchical binary oppositions.

In conclusion, Sex and Lies offers brave, lucid, witty, and valuable testimonies about the sexual lives of Moroccan women of different ages, educational backgrounds, and classes, inclusive of lesbian experiences; then testimonies of young women who had no other option but to engage in prostitution to support their families; testimonies of married, divorced, and unmarried women who speak freely about desire and practice sexual pleasures despite of repressive circumstances. The book offers a convincing critique of Moroccan laws and public morality related to sexuality and provides an important argument that sexually repressive measures are not derived from Islamic tradition. By providing more details on the French colonial origins of the Moroccan repressive legislation, Slimani could build a stronger argument both against Moroccan conservatives who, according to her, would argue that sexual repression is an Islamic tradition, and against French liberal intellectuals whom she suspects would accuse her of Islamophobia and Orientalism. In fact, this book challenges the Orientalist stereotypes about Islamic societies, and especially about Muslim women in many ways. What I find missing from Slimani’s analysis is the critique of European colonialism and misogyny; a problematization of the strands of the Enlightenment that offered no rights or freedom to women; and ultimately, the critique of so-called middle-class morality. I argue that these elements, sorely missing from her analysis, are core to the contemporary rise of far-right movements in Europe, which are also oppressive towards sexual freedoms and women’s rights. In that sense, I consider that a critique of “universal Enlightenment values,” would allow Slimani to build a more convincing argument for overcoming binary oppositions and hierarchies.

[1] The title of the French original is Sexe et Mensonges: La Vie Sexuelle au Maroc

[2] Slimani, Leïla. 2020. Sex and Lies. Translated by Sophie Lewis. Faber & Faber.

Society on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, p. 58

[3] Sex and Lies, pp. 68-69

[4] Sex and Lies, p. 2

[5] Ibid., p. 70

[6] p. 70

[7] p. 5

[8] p. 70

[9] P. 7

[10] p. 63

[11] p. 72

[12] p. 15, p. 19, etc.

[13] p. 31

[14] p. 94

[15] p. 94

[16] p. 95

[17] p. 102

[18] p. 102

References:

Slimani, Leïla. Sex and Lies. Translated by Sophie Lewis. Faber & Faber, 2020. Kindle.