Theresa Everline reports on Islam’s battle against sex in Egypt, where the desire to treat unmarried women as a cross between a cow and a financial instrument has spawned a network of spies and busybodies.
In the Soviet Union, the person who kept up the common area of your apartment building was also part of the State’s political control apparatus. They knew who your visitors were, they strained to listen to the conversations in your rooms. Any sign of dissent was reported.
In Egypt, it’s not the State, but the culture watching you. If you go out without a head scarf, your neighbors will yell at you. And while the government gives murderous radicals a wink and a nudge, anything sexual is reported up and down the neighborhood, by the doorman, as a threat against Islam.
