Samiirah Sorciere

I didn't say don't wear silks, I actually said, "Fine, wear them." I just don't like them presented as something belonging to my culture when they aren't. That's the offensive part, not the existence of silks or people wearing them.

You're right, I got the temperature conversions wrong, I don't think in Fahrenheit, so I'm sorry for that. I mistook the highs and lows for Celsius and Fahrenheit, and the page opened in Fahrenheit. 99F = 37C, Cairo noon temperature; Riyadh noon temperature 106F = 41C. When I say "white girls" I mean white female avatars. I don't really care who the players are, I just want the racism to stop. And I wasn't calling all white people stupid, just the ones who wear those and play dress-up hooker with stereotypes. Better?

This entire letter could be summed up in three words - "STOP FETISHIZING ME" - but I'm gonna break it down, because that seems necessary. I'm gonna TRY not to rant. Much. I am so utterly sick and disgusted at the "Arabian" club events and clothing I see everywhere in SL, I barely know where to start. Maybe the word itself. I am not "Arabian." I am an Arab. I speak Arabic (but not very much, I was raised in the West). Why does the word bother me? Because it jams me into a box shaped by Western stereotypes of 1,001 Nights and Scheherazade (who wasn't even Arab, she was Persian), nymphomaniacs in see-through harem pants undulating through clouds of hashish smoke for the pleasure of men, exotic treasures from the mysterious and dangerous East. Spare me. Apparently my only other choice is to be a faceless oppressed zombie who's probably carrying a suicide bomb under her abaya. It's like the Madonna/Whore dichotomy, on steroids with a side of hummus and tabouleh. I recently went to a gorgeous sim - credit where credit is due - that bills itself as an "Arabian Treasure Company." You'd think I'd know better from the name, but Ms. Sorcière is a slow learner sometimes. And what kind of clothes did I see? Walls of harem pants and silks. SILKS. Look, no one I know owns a pair of those gauzy harem pants, with the exception of one woman who is a professional teacher of raqs sharqi, an Egyptian style of bellydance. I own something similar, Punjabi-style shalwar, but those are (a) worn with a knee-length tunic instead of a minimal bra and (b) opaque. And no Arab woman I've ever even heard of owns, or would wear, a set of silks. Quite aside from the naked (!) glorification of slavery, there's the weather. Temperatures in Cairo at this time of year are in the low to mid 70s Celsius (that's mid to high 90s for you in the USA) with no rain and no cloud cover. The temperatures in Riyadh are hotter than that. Any idiot wearing silks out of doors, most especially someone with pale European skin, is going to fry like bacon in about 10 minutes. Silks are GOREAN, they are not and have never been even remotely connected to Arabic culture, which values privacy - modesty in dress being an expression of that. Did I see thobes? Abayas? Jilbabs? Hijabs? I did not. Arab embroidery is gorgeous, I wish I could see more of it. What I saw were the same dreary stereotypes of slavery and sexuality, served up for white girls with a taste for brownface and the men who like them that way - just like in those "Arabian" "Harem Hottie" club events. <gag> Club owners, let me ask you this: how many actual Arab people (and there are a LOT of Arabs in SL) do you find coming to your events? I'm guessing roughly… none, except for the occasional guy who likes dumb white girls. No Arab woman I know would be caught dead anywhere near there. Arabic music? Nope. "Too Arab," I was actually told by a club owner. Oh, sorry, too much reality interrupting your appropriative fantasy? My bad, habibi. I am tired of being a sexual fetish, a cardboard cutout mockery, an inspiration for degrading merchandise that ignores me as a human being and relegates my culture to a medieval fantasy that never existed. You want to wear silks? Fine, wear them. Just don't call them "Arabian." Don't involve me and mine in your quest to decorate your BDSM with ignorant ideas about items you've strip-mined from other people. And before someone says they're "honouring" Arab culture, let me state for the record that perpetuating stupid, sexist, racist, anachronistic stereotypes that are deeply offensive to members of the culture in question IS NOT HONOURING it. Seriously. Knock it the f*** off.

This entire letter could be summed up in three words - "STOP FETISHIZING ME" - but I'm gonna break it down, because that seems necessary. I'm gonna TRY not to rant. Much. I am so utterly sick and disgusted at the "Arabian" club events and clothing I see everywhere in SL, I barely know where to start. Maybe the word itself. I am not "Arabian." I am an Arab. I speak Arabic (but not very much, I was raised in the West). Why does the word bother me? Because it jams me into a box shaped by Western stereotypes of 1,001 Nights and Scheherazade (who wasn't even Arab, she was Persian), nymphomaniacs in see-through harem pants undulating through clouds of hashish smoke for the pleasure of men, exotic treasures from the mysterious and dangerous East. Spare me. Apparently my only other choice is to be a faceless oppressed zombie who's probably carrying a suicide bomb under her abaya. It's like the Madonna/Whore dichotomy, on steroids with a side of hummus and tabouleh. I recently went to a gorgeous sim - credit where credit is due - that bills itself as an "Arabian Treasure Company." You'd think I'd know better from the name, but Ms. Sorcière is a slow learner sometimes. And what kind of clothes did I see? Walls of harem pants and silks. SILKS. Look, no one I know owns a pair of those gauzy harem pants, with the exception of one woman who is a professional teacher of raqs sharqi, an Egyptian style of bellydance. I own something similar, Punjabi-style shalwar, but those are (a) worn with a knee-length tunic instead of a minimal bra and (b) opaque. And no Arab woman I've ever even heard of owns, or would wear, a set of silks. Quite aside from the naked (!) glorification of slavery, there's the weather. Temperatures in Cairo at this time of year are in the low to mid 70s Celsius (that's mid to high 90s for you in the USA) with no rain and no cloud cover. The temperatures in Riyadh are hotter than that. Any idiot wearing silks out of doors, most especially someone with pale European skin, is going to fry like bacon in about 10 minutes. Silks are GOREAN, they are not and have never been even remotely connected to Arabic culture, which values privacy - modesty in dress being an expression of that. Did I see thobes? Abayas? Jilbabs? Hijabs? I did not. Arab embroidery is gorgeous, I wish I could see more of it. What I saw were the same dreary stereotypes of slavery and sexuality, served up for white girls with a taste for brownface and the men who like them that way - just like in those "Arabian" "Harem Hottie" club events. <gag> Club owners, let me ask you this: how many actual Arab people (and there are a LOT of Arabs in SL) do you find coming to your events? I'm guessing roughly… none, except for the occasional guy who likes dumb white girls. No Arab woman I know would be caught dead anywhere near there. Arabic music? Nope. "Too Arab," I was actually told by a club owner. Oh, sorry, too much reality interrupting your appropriative fantasy? My bad, habibi. I am tired of being a sexual fetish, a cardboard cutout mockery, an inspiration for degrading merchandise that ignores me as a human being and relegates my culture to a medieval fantasy that never existed. You want to wear silks? Fine, wear them. Just don't call them "Arabian." Don't involve me and mine in your quest to decorate your BDSM with ignorant ideas about items you've strip-mined from other people. And before someone says they're "honouring" Arab culture, let me state for the record that perpetuating stupid, sexist, racist, anachronistic stereotypes that are deeply offensive to members of the culture in question IS NOT HONOURING it. Seriously. Knock it the f*** off.