By There’s a problem with white liberal feminists: it’s their refusal to acknowledge that women of color are capable of empowering themselves. This phenomenon runs rampant in today’s society, and it’s especially rearing its ugly head in — wait for it — the porn industry! This time, it’s with Women of the Middle East, a BDSM Muslim-themed porn film. Veiled Muslim women are subjugated to the problematic white savior complex messaging that they are all oppressed by Muslim men, with the headscarf being the symbol of said oppression. In fact, the politically-charged film starts with that very message: it demands that Muslim women should “take their veils off!”
The premise of the film features four episodes of “Muslim women” — starring some porn actresses from the Middle East — parading around emulating typical stereotypical personas while veiled in a niqab or hijab. In fact, the porn film itself passes most of the litmus tests when it comes to Hollywood’s depiction of the Arab world with the three B’s (billionaires, belly dancers and bombers). In Women of the Middle East, a subjugated wife is sexually abused by her husband. Then there’s the redundant depictions of Muslim women as the sexy belly dancer and the trafficked prostitute — and to top it all off, there’s a Saudi billionaire businessman thrown into the mix.
Whether it’s revenge porn or the sexual fetishaztion of the hijab, MuslimGirl is never afraid to tackle the taboo discussion revolving around porngraphy. We’re also not afraid to be blunt. This is particularly why I will say that the husband and wife duo behind the adult film production company Porn Fidelity, Ryan and Kelly Madison, are severely ignorant, idiotic and inherently racist regarding the complex issues involving women from the Middle East.
“I didn’t want to do ‘just put her in a burqa and do a big gang-bang’ type thing,” Kelly Madison told Mic when asked about the purpose of her porn film. “I thought I’d put a little bit of my feminism in the video. I had to put my own social commentary into it.”
That’s the problem. Madison, the 46-year-old white porn star in Orange County, isn’t the representative nor is she qualified to dictate how Middle Eastern women should dress or act. In fact, there’s an irony underneath the “feminist social commentary” that she’d like to impose onto Middle Eastern women: while critiquing that the veiling of Muslim women sexualized and disallows them from their right to express themselves sexually, Madison is injecting the very same culture she vehemently opposes. In Women of the Middle East, it’s Muslim women who are being sexualized into a propagandistic message that Muslim women must “take the veil off” and are incapable of choosing their own sexual lifestyle.
The porn film also highlights another troubling discussion among westerners when it comes to Muslim women. Through the eyes of the West, the discussion surrounding Muslim women are limited to sexual fetishzations, headscarves and hymens. However, realistically, their perils in this world are far more greater than their headscarves when Muslim women find themselves in the midst of occupation, state-sponsored terrorism, and government surveillance. But again, it’s not up to white liberal feminism — or Muslim men — to speak on behalf of Muslim women.
There are numerous Muslim feminists leaving behind a blazing trail of progress for women’s rights and for white liberal feminists to diminish those efforts by enacting through their own privilege would do a great disservice to the Muslim women they attempt to “save.”
If these western feminists truly care about the livelihoods of Muslim women abroad, the best thing they can do is listen and share the work of these fearless trailblazers breaking down the stereotypes and injustices they didn’t make.
More importantly, where’s the cash flow going? Is it going to Muslim women? It’s highly unlikely for Madison to donate the revenue of the film to the Muslim women she’s trying to “liberate” — the Muslim women whose top priority is to feed their children and family in their war-torn homes.
Although it’s important to highlight the issues of forced veiling for women in Afghanistan, women’s right to drive in Saudi Arabia, and the FGM practices embedded in African culture, it’s imperative to underline that white liberal feminists are silent when it comes to the Western occupation and U.S.-sponsored funding to the very same authoritarian regimes responsible for making life for Muslim women hellish on this earth. The reason, although it is a painful one to process for all parties, is ubiquitous and obvious: the white liberal feminist need to feel pity for the Muslim woman and to remind their self-righteous self they’re exceptional in comparison.
And that is the blatant message given by Madison’s Women of the Middle East.
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Image: Wikipedia.
This article is in itself confusing, on the one hand it hints at racism by white women exploiting the not so white women of Arabia while defending them with the banner of Islam or being Muslim. It remains silent in not clarifying whether this is only prevalent against Muslim women or women in general whether of any other race, religion etc. Only harping the exploitation of Muslim women is also a sort of religio-racism which sadly the article fails to address.
This is the second porn article in a week. Can we please chose another topic? There are a lot more better topics to write about that affect or interest our ummah more than porn.
How about political stances of the presidential candidates on foreign policy and Muslims? The issue of abortion in Islam? Reader contributed stories about a racist incident that happened to them and how they overcame it??
Actually this one seems to be important and worth to mention. If you would let this topic fall where it may, people would keep consuming porn without any thought. This is not porn, this is typical propaganda. Feminists think that being exploited on the camera by some random horny dude/dudes is liberating and empowering. How noble….
y’all really love your porn. maybe someone here can answer my question about the 2nd verse of the 24th surah, other muslims seem to not want to. how do you interpret it. is it actually calling for 100 lashes to a fornicator as it says?
its same for judaism and christianity as well
what is the same? a love of porn?
not only that stoning the fornicator thing as well read deuteronomy or levictus. Love for porn is universal since time immemorial. it cuts across all religions, genders, races etc.
yes I love porn too. I just thought that muslims, given their holy books hatred of fornication, see 24:2, would be less enamored with porn. I guess it is not so. yes, I’ve read the bible. and Muhammad has too, or at least he had someone who could read, read parts to him.
Narrated Ibn ‘Umar: A Jew and a Jewess were brought to Allah’s Apostle on a charge of committing an illegal sexual intercourse. The Prophet asked them. “What is the legal punishment (for this sin) in your Book (Torah)?” They replied, “Our priests have innovated the punishment of blackening the faces with charcoal and Tajbiya.” ‘Abdullah bin Salam said, “O Allah’s Apostle, tell them to bring the Torah.” The Torah was brought, and then one of the Jews put his hand over the Divine Verse of the Rajam (stoning to death) and started reading what preceded and what followed it. On that, Ibn Salam said to the Jew, “Lift up your hand.” Behold! The Divine Verse of the Rajam was under his hand. So Allah’s Apostle ordered that the two (sinners) be stoned to death, and so they were stoned. Ibn ‘Umar added: So both of them were stoned at the Balat and I saw the Jew sheltering the Jewess.
here is the thing, I can’t think of a single country that holds the bible up as the foundation for their law. we see most the western world is not only not stoning homosexuals, but allowing them to enter into marriage contracts sanctioned by the states. and I can’t remember the last time a fornicator was lashed or an adulterer stoned or shot or beheaded.
But here is a thing too that most countries became open to homosexuality only recently. Those days are not very far gone when homosexual poets found resolve and freedom in casablanca rather then their western countries . Look at this article http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29566539
i’ll checkout your article, although I probably already read it. I love the bbc. and I know about interzones and post ww2 morocco. yes homosexuality was illegal in most countries until very recently. in Britain it was illegal until 1967. Sodom was illegal in most states, although rarely prosecuted, until the supreme court held it unconstitutional in the texas case. that might have been in this century or in the 90s at the latest.
but here is the real thing. when someone claims divine revelation from the all knowing and all powerful god, one is held to a higher standard. or maybe that is just me?
Sodom was illegal in most states, although rarely prosecuted, have you forgot Alan Turing
no I haven’t forgotten alan turing, never heard of him. but i’ll google it.
so if this guy was put to death for Sodom, that would mean what?
Do you even know about judaism and christianity, Do you even know about this. what do you think about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_violence_against_LGBT_people_in_the_United_States
yes you said you were agnostic. but you were raised muslim, right? I’m an atheist, raised catholic. so, yes, I know all about the bible, have read it several times I imagine. 12 years of catholic schooling. Judaism and Christianity, like islam, are poor religions.
so the Koran doesn’t say to kill gays but the torah does. do not most muslims consider the torah a holy book? along with the zabur and injil and of course the ‘perfect’ Koran. so why not mention the hadiths? most muslims follow them. why else would they pray 5 times a day when only 3 prayers are mentioned in the Koran. as an agnostic why wouldn’t you study the sunnah to see all the terrible things it tells muslims to do? but if you wish we can limit this discussion to the Koran.
do you speak Arabic? how do you translate zina? the 2nd verse of ‘the light’ says to lash those who commit zina. if you read Muhammad asad’s translation, he claims that means both fornication and adultery, therefore abrogating the hadiths on stoning an adulterer. yet many muslims favor stoning an adulterer. is Sodom a form of zina (illegal sexual activity)? two men can’t get married in islam, right? so at the very least the gays are to be lashed 100 times.
7:80 And [We had sent] Lot when he said to his people, “Do you commit such immorality as no one has preceded you with from among the worlds?
7:81 Indeed, you approach men with desire, instead of women. Rather, you are a transgressing people.”
7:82 But the answer of his people was only that they said, “Evict them from your city! Indeed, they are men who keep themselves pure.”
7:83 So We saved him and his family, except for his wife; she was of those who remained [with the evildoers].
7:84 And We rained upon them a rain [of stones]. Then see how was the end of the criminals.
sorry I forgot your wiki link earlier. what do I think of people who attack gays and transgendered. I think it is bad. I’m against it. I think it should be illegal, wait, it is illegal. 25,000 people a year are murdered in America too. and I’m against it. I think rapes peaked at around 100,000 per year in the mid 90s, I’m against it.
http://76crimes.com/76-countries-where-homosexuality-is-illegal/
yeah I read that article when it posted. and Anthony bourdain has an episode on morocco, he goes to the same hotel. talks to an old Moroccan about how it has changed and how the parties were back in the day. and he talks to some old white people too, british and American expats who recall the old days of smoke harsh.
A British man flew home from Marrakech last week after being jailed for “homosexual acts”. There was a time though when Morocco was renowned as a haven for gay Americans and Britons, who fled restrictions in their own countries to take advantage of its relaxed atmosphere. GOOD OLD DAYS IN HISTORY OF EGYPT AND MORROCO. TURKEY has always been good to gays since 19th century legally
yes the interzones are gone. William borroughs would be imprisoned now or worse. ‘once I ran to you. now I run from, this tainted love you give….
“TURKEY has always been good to gays since 19th century legally” did you see the video of the attempt at a gay pride parade in Istanbul? I think the guy in the yellow shorts might disagree. edrogen will be the end of modern secular turkey.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/water-cannon-disperse-istanbul-gay-pride-parade-150628150318097.html
there is no physical punishment for fornication in christianity. in judaism yes .stop the misrepresentation.
Most of the points raised in this article are valid and important. But these are overshadowed by the author polarising white “western feminists” against “Muslim feminists”.
I am a white, Western, Muslim feminist. So where do I fit within your narrative?
Exactly! Muslims are of all colors and ethnicities.
White and western feminism is a systematic ideology. Obviously not all white women are white feminists, but there are white feminists whose only concerns are white females.
I understand this distinction already. But language is important. If one is writing an article on the topics of exploitation and stereotyping of certain groups in society, words need to be chosen carefully, in order not to exclude others.
This is an instance of ONE self proclaimed white ‘feminist’, remember. Instead of lumping white liberal feminists all in together as ‘a problem’, we Muslim feminists should use our voices positively to build, rather than to tear down.
are u kidding ? talking about female empowerment in the context of porn either muslim or non muslim is an oxymoron .u should know better.
I am glad that someone wrote about it. Nowadays, porn seems to get engaged, a litle bit too much into the world of politics, social and religion issues. Making their own propaganda. This is ugly. My advice for all the performers and directors – stay at entertainment/media level and everyone will be happy. You earn a lot, people consume it brainlessly. Fair enough? That’s how market works. I am fed up with porn actresses becoming social heroes, liberators, visionaries. Stick to your profession, as I know, you earn quite good cash, live comfortable lifes and become popular celebrities just after single performance.