Last week I mentioned a fascinating article on The Long Slumber blog called The crisis of Arab masculinities. Well, the same blog has now come up with another one: Hymen: the Arabs’ finest fetish. It begins ...

Contrary to common belief, fetishes do not just exist in the tents of West African witch doctors or the smelly S&M dungeons of some perverted westerners. No, they exist in the midst of even the most pious of Arab families, and that despite the Islamic prohibition of idol worship.

I don’t know the writer’s identity but he(?) describes himself as an anthropologist, peacebuilder and activist who carries “both the genetic material and historical baggage of the orient and occident”.