Islamist dress rules protect men’s sexuality, not women’s, from public exposure.

Evidence

There seems to be a contradiction here in that even though women and men are both acknowledged to have sexual desire, which they are encouraged to pursue within the private space of matrimonial life, in public it is only male sexuality that is accorded a force. Since men are understood to be more sexu.. ally excitable in public than women, it follows that various kinds of social rules are set up to protect against men’s propensity to commit sexual transgressions. This is only one illustration of how these ideas about male..female sexuality provide the necessary ground upon which much of the current Islamist debate proceeds; those who challenge these presumptions are often treated as being outside the fold of Islam: as being either “un..Islamic” or “secularist.” — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 790

Categorization

• XREF: Inverts the common Western framing — here modesty regulation is framed as shielding men from their own excitability, connecting to the immodesty-panics article’s logic across cultures. — connects to: Legal prohibitions on disclosure punish sexuality without appearing to ban it outright. — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 1244
• QUESTION: This reframing (men bear the sexual agency) could be developed: how does this premise shape what feminist contestation is even possible inside the tradition?