Rami G. Khouri at PostGlobal

Rami G Khouri

Beirut, Lebanon

Rami George Khouri is a Palestinian-Jordanian and U.S. citizen whose family resides in Beirut, Amman, and Nazareth. He is editor at large, and former executive editor, of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune. An internationally syndicated political columnist and book author, he is also the first director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, and also serves as a nonresident senior fellow at the Kennedy School of Harvard University and the Dubai School of Government. He was awarded the Pax Christi International Peace Prize for 2006. He teaches annually at American University of Beirut, University of Chicago and Northeastern University. He has been a fellow and visiting scholar at Harvard University, Mount Holyoke College, Syracuse University and Stanford University, and is a member of the Brookings Institution Task Force on US Relations with the Islamic World. He is a Fellow of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (Jerusalem), and a member of the Leadership Council of the Harvard University Divinity School. He also serves on the board of the East-West Institute, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University (USA), and the Jordan National Museum. He was editor-in-chief of the Jordan Times for seven years and for 18 years he was general manager of Al Kutba, Publishers, in Amman, Jordan, where he also served as a consultant to the Jordanian tourism ministry on biblical archaeological sites. He has hosted programs on archeology, history and current public affairs on Jordan Television and Radio Jordan, and often comments on Mideast issues in the international media. He has BA and MSc degrees respectively in political science and mass communications from Syracuse University, NY, USA. Close.

Rami G Khouri

Beirut, Lebanon

Rami George Khouri is a Palestinian-Jordanian and U.S. citizen whose family resides in Beirut, Amman, and Nazareth. He is editor at large, and former executive editor, of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper. more »

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Exhibitionists and Conservatives Walking Hand in Hand

Sexuality is very important in Lebanese society, moreso than in other Arab countries. Some girls and women in Lebanon are certainly "over-sexualized". They use make-up, dress, cosmetic surgery, and other tools of the trade to flaunt their natural beauty or manufacture new sexual appeal.

Just watch some of the Lebanese satellite television services or pick up local magazines to see this phenomenon. Sexual appeal is used as a commercial marketing tool. This has now spread to the pan-Arab satellite television realm, where much money is made by income from SMS cell phone messages sent to programs hosted by lovely, shapely young ladies in diminutive, tight outfits.

The really fascinating thing about this sexuality in my view is not that some girls parade their bodies publicly in skimpy clothes -- because this is a global phenomenon -- but that in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon, this sort of sexual exhibitionism is so naturally accepted by other, more conservative, parts of society, whether Christian or Muslim. It is common to see older women and their daughters walking hand in hand in the street, reflecting a combination of conservative, tribal, Medieval mores and post-modern, individualistic, exhibitionist values. The two coexist in deep harmony for the most part.

The wider social and urban context of public sexuality in Lebanon is as important to grasp as the psychological impact of sexual peer pressures on individual young girls. Sexuality is a good way to appreciate Beirut and Lebanon's assets as perhaps the last truly cosmopolitan part of the Arab world.

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