Newsmaker

Muslim woman gives sex advice on Arab TV

(AP)
Updated: 2006-12-04 11:46

"I'm very proud of my religion," Kotb told The Associated Press in an interview at Cairo University, where she teaches forensic medicine. "My studies revealed to me more and more how Islam was ahead in all sexual matters ... I discovered that Islam understood sex long before the rest of the world."

For example, Islam "stresses the importance of foreplay," Kotb said, and she often stresses to listeners that women should also enjoy sex.

Kotb's frankness is a hit in a region where sex education is minimal, male-female contact is often discouraged and talk on the subject is usually in hushed tones, allowing myths to circulate freely.

She lectured in Saudi Arabia and Yemen recently, where she said many men in the audience where shocked, while women - some with veiled faces - bombarded her with questions.

Kotb, 39 and married with three daughters, studied sexology with Maimonides University, a private school in Florida, and combined it with her own knowledge of her religion to produce a dissertation titled "Sexuality in Islam." She opened a sexology clinic in Cairo in 2002, wrote sex advice columns in newspapers, appeared on talk shows and answered questions on an Arabic Web site.

She started "Big Talk" on the independent Egyptian satellite channel El-Mehwar more than two months ago.

Much of her advice is straight biology - laying out facts rarely aired elsewhere. Nothing is too sensitive. She discusses sexual positions, female orgasm, oral sex (allowed, "since there is no religious text banning it"), even masturbation (frowned upon but at least preferable to unmarried or adulterous sex, which is "haram," meaning forbidden by religion).