Chewing Viagra Gum, the Audio Version!

15 March, 2022

“Chewing Viagra Gum”—Mai Ghoussoub’s groundbreaking essay on culture and Arab media, begins with the Israel plot to undermine “the Arab body” with sexual chewing gum, a story that was first reported in Middle Eastern newspapers in 1996.

Ghoussoub’s essay also critiques patriarchal attitudes in the region, medieval Islamic sexual manuals and Egyptian cinema. Ghoussoub (1952-2007) was an author, artist and publisher known for her writing on gender issues, her plays and art performances. She co-founded Saqi Books, the first Middle Eastern publishing house and bookstore in London, with André Gaspard. Saqi, which means the water-carrier in Arabic, published titles no other Middle Eastern publisher would touch at the time, such as Brian Whitaker’s “Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East” (2006) and Ammar Abdulhamid’s debut novel, “Menstruation” (2001).

“Chewing Viagra Gum” first appeared in Imagined Masculinities: Male Identity and Culture in the Modern Middle East, an anthology of essays she coedited with Emma Sinclair-Webb, which Saqi published in 2000. The essay was abridged, in this special reading for the TMR by Malu Halasa, with music by Justin Adams.

 

Malu Halasais a writer and Literary Editor of The Markaz Review. She is editor of the anthology Woman Life Freedom: Voices and Art From the Women’s Protests in Iran (2023) and coeditor of Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader (2025), with Jordan Elgrably. Her debut novel Mother of All Pigs (2017) was described by the New York Times as “a microcosmic portrait of… a patriarchal order in slow-motion decline.” Her co-authored books include: Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline (2014); The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie: Intimacy and Design (2008), with Rana Salam; Transit Tehran: Young Iran and Its Inspirations (2009), with Maziar Bahari; and Transit Beirut: New Writing and Images (2004). As managing editor of the Prince Claus Fund Library, Amsterdam, she produced books on art and culture from the Global South. A founding editor of Tank Magazine, London, and Editor at Large for Portal 9, Beirut, she has written for the Guardian, Financial Times and TLS. Her writings, exhibitions, and lectures chart a changing Middle East. Find her on Instagram @Malu Halasa.

Arab sexualitychewing gumMai GhoussoubMalu HalasaViagra

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