Europeans responded with awe, finding a more colourful, sensual and in many ways gentler world than their own. The critic Edward Said argued that Westerners viewed the East through a prism of their own prurience. One feels he rather over-egged his argument: Western writers may have painted a one-dimensional view of the Arabic-speaking world, yet it was not pure fantasy. The sensuality is there, and still exists. Today, however, we are more inclined to view Arabs as puritans or hypocrites, even repressed woman-haters. This, too, reflects a truth where, as El Feki again remarks, there has never been a public space to discuss sex. Love and sex, as well as its corruption via prostitution and violence, take place in private, with a dense coating of doublethink as everyone guesses what may be appropriate.