The most present theme I have noticed in this week’s readings is the theme of imprisonment, and how sexuality is meant to both imprison and yet provide a platform to escape imprisonment. It is very obvious in Malek Alloula’s piece, “Women’s Prisons,” which explores the imprisoning qualities of female stereotypes. He states that in trying to portray a culture, with all its subtleties and nuances, in a way that those outside of the culture can understand, we end up creating a stereotype that is difficult to reverse, a caricature of an intricate and complicated culture. Juxtaposition exists between an attempt to open the minds of others and in fact pigeonholing a culture in that endeavor. It must be a phenomenon that does not only apply to Middle Eastern culture, but other cultures of the world as well.
This theme transcends the piece and is also reflected in Ann Laura Stoler’s “Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Gender, Race, and Morality in Colonial Asia.” It portrays sexuality as a battle for power, where someone is the victor and someone, the inferior or subordinate, must be punished for being weak or susceptible to sexual deviance. For example, she discusses the roles of women, how during colonization women were seen as "companions for psychological and physical well-being," as people who were only capable of submitting to the will of others, therefore imprisoned by their supposed sexual nature. There seems to be a connection between the nature of the persecution in racism and the persecution in discrimination based on sexuality. Both have resulted in action from the state or government, proving how social issues can be so deeply tied to our formal social structure.
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