Monitoring and Medicalising Male Sexuality in Semi‐Colonial Egypt

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which Egyptian legislators and reformers drafted and debated new regimes of monitoring male sexuality in nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Egypt. An exploration of the state's legislation on marriage, prostitution and venereal disease reveals that the state assumed an unprecedented role in monitoring and medicalising the sexuality of Egyptian men. Its goal was to create 'healthy', disciplined men who would create fit and modern families that would serve as the foundation for a postcolonial nation free of socio-medical ills. In their attempts to medicalise male sexuality and regulate female prostitution, legislative reformers were delineating and gendering the normative heterosexuality of the healthy male colonial subject for the emerging nation.Recent scholarship has brought much-needed attention to the medicalisation of reproduction, prostitution and venereal disease in colonial and contemporary Egypt, but it has overwhelmingly focused on the health of females since they were the ones who bore and raised the future citizens of the nation. 1 In contrast, this article analyses legislation that concentrated on the sexual practices of male colonial subjects to demonstrate how a new heterosexually normative male body became inextricably linked to the success of the emerging Egyptian nation. It highlights how Egyptian notions of sexual diseases were gendered and explains why certain diseases were an issue of concern only if men had contracted them. Specifically, it briefly reviews the Ottoman and colonial legislation related to female prostitution before it analyses Article 9 of Egyptian Personal Status Law 25 of 1920 -the last successful attempt of the interwar state to regulate male sexuality -which granted a wife the right to divorce her husband if he contracted a chronic ailment such as venereal disease. This article argues that the Egyptian monitoring and medicalisation of male sexuality was part and parcel of the larger worldwide eugenics movement in the early twentieth century that resulted in the medicalisation of sex, marriage and reproduction in many other parts of the world like colonial India, Bolshevik Russia, Nazi Germany and the American south. Not only did Egyptians participate in the international movement by cautiously deploying its various models in eugenics; perhaps more significantly, they departed from the global movement by localising various eugenic examples and drawing inspiration from medieval Islamic religious texts rather than western scientific treatises to fit their own unique socio-political and medico-legal context.

Tarrying with the Leviathan: body and temporality in modern Egypt

“…Amira Sonbol studied the Westernisation of the Western knowledge in Egypt (Sonbol, 1991). Hanan Kholoussy examined how the medical discourse restricted male sexual behaviour to create a healthy, heterosexual, and disciplined family man (Kholoussy, 2010a). She also examined the circulation of a discourse in the 19 th century that bachelors should seek to create families (Kholoussy, 2010b).…”

“…Increasing productivity was the goal. Since men were fundamental as a part of labour force and the military during Muhammad Ali's era, their sexual lives must be monitored to ensure a healthy body (Kholoussy, 2010a). From the 19 th century onwards male bodies were constantly checked in the military and they were not allowed to have sexual intercourse while serving (Kholoussy, 2010a).…”

“…Since men were fundamental as a part of labour force and the military during Muhammad Ali's era, their sexual lives must be monitored to ensure a healthy body (Kholoussy, 2010a). From the 19 th century onwards male bodies were constantly checked in the military and they were not allowed to have sexual intercourse while serving (Kholoussy, 2010a). Regulating prostitution (this is going to be discussed later) aimed to regulate the sexual behaviour of men so that they do not get infected (Kholoussy, 2010a;Fahmy, 2002a).…”

“…From the 19 th century onwards male bodies were constantly checked in the military and they were not allowed to have sexual intercourse while serving (Kholoussy, 2010a). Regulating prostitution (this is going to be discussed later) aimed to regulate the sexual behaviour of men so that they do not get infected (Kholoussy, 2010a;Fahmy, 2002a). Regulating prostitution aimed to regulate male sexuality (Kholoussy, 2010a).…”

“…Regulating prostitution (this is going to be discussed later) aimed to regulate the sexual behaviour of men so that they do not get infected (Kholoussy, 2010a;Fahmy, 2002a). Regulating prostitution aimed to regulate male sexuality (Kholoussy, 2010a). The Islamic thinker, Muhammad…”