Sex in the Arab world is the opposite of sport. This is what a gynaecologist in Egypt told me. Everyone talks about football but hardly anyone plays it; whereas everyone is having sex but no-one wants to talk about it.
I spent five years travelling across the Arab region talking about sex, including Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Lebanon. My problem was not getting people to talk about sex, but getting them to stop. People were very eager to ask questions and to speak openly about their experiences. I think that was because I come from a background of public health – I’m an immunologist – and also I’m half-Egyptian and a Muslim, but I look Western. Often women don’t speak openly because they’re afraid of being judged and they thought, with me coming from the West, they could speak with no judgement.
