I'm not sure what to make of this. The perpetually outraged feminazis are, of course, outraged at this veil fetish art, and argue this is what happens when stereotypes collide. Dammit! You can't gunny sack 'em, and you can't sexualize 'em. I'm not sure if this genre of pin up is a Western creation of the body in a burqa for titillating Mid East consumption, or if it is home grown Middle eastern monkey spank for the sexually repressed Muslim male which found a niche in the darkened minds of Western fetishists. I'll leave all that to your imagination.
Muslimah Media Watch is outraged that this type of 'islamic erotica' is popular on Western blogs she deems 'islamophobic or xenophobic', and equally outraged that the models are most likely Western women.
So whose attention are they aiming for? Like I described earlier, the majority of websites that feature images like these usually carry heavy Islamophobic themes. Ironically, these outlets are often the same ones that call for the “liberation” of Muslim women while depicting these women in pornographic imagery. In these pictures, the veil adds a dimension of oppression that cries out for western male help: you can almost hear the women breathe, “Liberate me!” Take off her veil and get a prize…her body! So…if you can’t beat ‘em, degrade ‘em!And I thought it was all about choice.
The painting featured here is by one Makan “Max” Emadi, and he contrasts East v. West in more common sense terms - men are hot for women:
“Representation of the female body is forbidden in strict Islamic tradition, and is therefore taboo in today's Muslim cultures. To imagine Western art without the nude is, in contrast, impossible. These paintings revisit the Western tradition of pin-up art and its ‘celebration’ of the female form while ‘lovingly’ objectifying it through overexposure and unnatural posing of the model. The Middle East's version of sexism, in contrast, takes the form of control through mandated repressive female clothing, or ‘Hejab,’ in the name of protecting and honoring women.
