Thoughts on Kifah Hanna

Dr. Hanna's lecture on contemporary levantine literature was a fantastic gateway for exploring societal views on sex and sexuality all over the world. While her work revolved around Arab countries moving from liberal views to ultra conservative she neatly contrasted these with differences seen in the western world. I found it incredibly interesting that past works that were considered unsavory were censored to make up for the Arab decline, I in a way I feel like very few countries could get away with this somewhat successfully due to the circulation of written works. Compare Greek culture to Arab culture for a brief moment, the Greeks couldn't try to cover up past works featuring homoeroticism if they tried because it was such an integral part of their culture however people exporting Greek works tried their hardest in most cases to cover up some of the more unsavory details behind the themes of their artwork. However in the case of Arab works revolving around homoeroticism the country has been very successful in censoring their own works while the rest of the world curiously wishes to de-censor the restricted works to better learn about the secretive culture. The Arab over compensation for the apparent decline of its own culture is very interesting that the first thing they turn to is repressing sexuality, prior to the introduction of the western world they were seemingly free to go about expressing themselves, whether or not that expression was taken seriously is another matter, however upon the introduction of western society the eastern Arab cultures learned shame and over compensated for their previously hedonistic ways by forcibly driving those cultural aspects into a veritable underground domain. Now on the flip side the Arab world is seen as being far too controlling and in comparison to the ever loosening hold on ethical behavior seen in the west, its like they can never win. The sexual ethics of the Arab world can be seen in  two lights, the first being overly condemning and the second being a different perspective. I supposed I see the Arab treatments of sexuality as being both highly restrictive yet refreshing in a way, they downplay sex but emphasize beauty, they downplay sexual distractions and sex work, yet allow it as a utilitarian mechanism for society to survive. While I do not believe love and desire should be seen as an unfortunate necessity in any society it is very interesting to see that even in the dark the works of the few brave writers can thrive and on occasion when the conservative control of society least suspects it it creeps through the culture little by little infiltrating the thoughts of many.