Last night's edition of Ma La Yuqaal ("What is not said") – the BBC Arabic TV series focusing on taboo subjects – dealt with homosexuality. (A previous one explored Arabs' obsession with virginity.)

Film from Egypt, the Gulf, Morocco and Israel was followed by a studio discussion in which I took part, along with Abdessamad Dialmy (a Moroccan sociologist), Muhammad al-Awdy (a religious scholar from Kuwait), Samar Habib (author of Female Homosexuality in the Middle East), a female member of Imaan (the Muslim LGBT organisation in Britain), and several others.

The whole programme lasted just over an hour and a half. It finished at midnight, UK time – which probably means most people in the Middle East were safely asleep in bed when it went out and unlikely to be disturbed by its content. It will be repeated on Thursday, at the same late hour.