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| pic ⓒraseef |
Anyone following conversations among Arabs, whether in the street, football stadiums, or on social media, notices a striking phenomenon: insults do not stop at the opponent himself, but extend to his women, especially by mentioning their genitals.
At first glance, this might appear as mere “rudeness,” but in reality, it runs much deeper.
It reflects a deeply rooted cultural-religious system in which the woman’s body is seen as a mirror of a man’s honour, turning her into a tool of humiliation.
In this article, we expose how honour culture, literary heritage, sexual repression, and Islamic texts together produced a daily discourse that makes women the weakest and most targeted link.
But before diving into cultural and religious roots, it is necessary to recall a universal principle: one of the foundations of ethics in its Universal Code is that a human being must refrain from slander and obscene insults that violate dignity, and avoid using crude words unrelated to the act itself. Regardless of cultures and religions, one fact remains constant: sexual insults stand at the peak of verbal degradation and represent the clearest sign of moral collapse and corruption of values.
The distinction between description and slander is essential here:
- If a fool is described as foolish, a thief as a thief, or a deceiver as a deceiver, this remains a direct designation of a trait or act. Even if harsh, it stays within the realm of description.
- But when the thief is insulted with sexual slurs aimed at his mother or sister, this goes beyond description to outright slander, striking at the core of human dignity.
For this reason, no one blames a judge for calling a woman a prostitute in court if her guilt is legally proven, yet everyone condemns someone who drags the judge’s own mother or daughter into sexual insults. The first is descriptive; the second is degradation.
What is more disturbing is that this type of sexual abuse was not confined to marketplaces or street quarrels but even entered Islamic texts attributed to Muhammad, such as:
- “Insult him by saying: ‘Bite your father’s penis, and do not use euphemisms’” — directed at those boasting of their pre-Islamic ancestors.
- “Suck the clitoris of al-Lāt” — al-Lāt being a pagan idol of Quraysh, here ridiculed with the crudest sexual expression: suck your goddess’s vulva.
Thus, insulting by invoking sexual organs became not merely a vulgar folk habit, but part of foundational texts that gave it a religious veneer and legitimised its use in Arab-Muslim quarrels.
I. Honour Culture: Between Blood and Violence
Al-Mutanabbi (d. 23 September 965) wrote:
“Great honour cannot be preserved from harm… except by blood spilled on both its sides!”
This line is not a poetic aberration but a precise expression of a central Arab value: honour is not defended with words or law but with violence. The equation is clear:
Protecting honour = spilling blood.
In this system, the woman is not a person but a symbol of family honour. Any offence against her is “pollution” that requires bloodshed to restore “purity.” Even today, so-called “honour killings” are common, sometimes receiving lenient legal treatment. Sexual insults targeting women’s genitals are a continuation of this culture: humiliating men through the alleged dishonour of their women.
Honour culture also exposes the fragility of masculinity: a man’s worth is imagined to rest upon his women. The quickest way to emasculate him is to taint their chastity verbally. This is why insults against women sting men so deeply — they reveal how fragile and performative masculinity is when it depends on controlling women’s bodies.
II. Woman as Devil and Seductress
“A woman approaches in the image of a devil and leaves in the image of a devil” (hadith attributed to Muhammad).
Here, the woman is reduced to pure temptation, equated with corruption. She is not seen as a full human being, but as a vessel of sin. This religious view created a collective unconscious that blames women for any sexual deviation and permanently casts doubt upon them.
Result: even insults employ the woman as a symbol of “corrupt seduction,” a weapon to shame men by tainting their women.
What is striking is the hypocrisy: the very men who hurl insults at others’ mothers or sisters react with violence when the same is directed at their own. This contradiction reveals that women are not valued as individuals with dignity, but as symbolic extensions of male pride. The insult is unbearable only when it touches “their” property.
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| pic ⓒSMP |
III. Deficient in Mind and Religion
“I have not seen anyone more deficient in mind and religion who robs the resolve of a wise man more than you” (famous hadith).
Here, the woman is stripped of intellectual and spiritual capacity. She is framed as “lesser” in mind and religion. This entrenched her inferiority in law, education, and society.
- Socially: even educated women are perceived as “deficient.”
- Psychologically: from childhood, girls internalise the belief that they are incomplete, destined to be subordinate.
Thus, sexual insults become a direct extension of this exclusion: if the woman is inherently “deficient,” no wonder her existence is reduced to her body parts.
IV. Menstrual Impurity
Islamic jurisprudence considers menstruating women “impure,” prohibiting them from prayer, fasting, approaching mosques, or having sex. This makes them periodically “contaminated,” to be isolated.
- Social impact: repeated shame about their natural bodies.
- Symbolic impact: reinforcement of the idea that women are less pure than men.
In insults, this legacy reappears: women reduced to “polluted bodies,” instruments of disgrace.
While insults are hurled between men, it is women themselves who silently suffer. Their bodies and reputations are dragged into conflicts they never chose. They become unwilling participants in battles of honour, experiencing humiliation and stigma regardless of their own actions.
V. Male Guardianship: Eternal Minors
“Men are the protectors and maintainers of women” (Qur’an, al-Nisā’ 34).
This verse did not remain rhetoric but became a legal and social system of female dependency:
- No independent decision: a woman cannot marry herself; she needs a male guardian.
- Daily life: in several Arab states, women cannot obtain passports, IDs, or certain services without male approval.
- Humiliating paradox: a 50-year-old woman may need permission from her 14-year-old son to travel as her “male guardian.” She who bore, nursed, and raised him is legally a minor under him.
Result: the woman is an eternal dependent, regardless of age or achievement. Sexual insults are the linguistic face of this guardianship: a constant reminder that she is a man’s “property” and a tool for humiliating him.
VI. Beating as Sacred Right
“As for those women whose disobedience you fear, admonish them, banish them to beds apart, and beat them” (Qur’an, al-Nisā’ 34).
Muhammad reportedly said: “A man is not to be asked why he beats his wife.”
From childhood, Muslims absorb this “sacred trilogy”:
admonish → abandon → beat.
- Psychological effect: beating becomes normalised.
- Social effect: the woman reduced to a body to be disciplined.
- Legal effect: no concept of marital rape exists in classical fiqh; coerced sex is seen as a man’s right.
Ultimately, the man is judge and executioner; the woman is devoid of agency. Sexual insults replicate this domination: humiliating both by casting her as an owned body.
VII. Woman Interrupts Prayer
Some hadiths claim that if a woman passes in front of a man in prayer, she “cuts off” his prayer — severing his link with Allah. She thus becomes a spiritual obstacle, inherently disruptive. This entrenches her inferiority even before Allah. Sexual insults are the social manifestation of this religious framing.
VIII. Sexual Repression and Distorted Language
Societies that repress sexuality breed pathological sexual discourse. In Arab cultures, where sex is taboo, it surfaces mainly as obscenity.
Hence, sexual insults are the direct product of repression: sex as shame and weapon, not mutual pleasure.
All cultures possess sexual insults, but in Arab-Islamic societies they carry a heavier weight because they are bound to honour, sanctified by religion, and legitimised by law. Elsewhere, a sexual insult might merely be vulgarity; here, it can trigger violence, even bloodshed. This cultural specificity explains the intensity and persistence of such language.
IX. From Classical Poetry to Digital Spaces
Arabic poetry, especially the naqā’id (poetic duels), was full of sexual insults. Today, social media continues the trend. Studies on Arabic Twitter confirm that sexual insults dominate abuse against women online. The digital realm did not change the structure — it amplified it.
Sexual insults are not limited to street fights or social media; historically, they have been weaponised in political conflicts as well. Rivals discredited each other by attacking the chastity of opponents’ women, turning family members into political battlegrounds. This demonstrates how sexualised insults became a tool not just of popular vulgarity but of power itself.
Sexual insults against women in Arab societies are not mere vulgarity but the outcome of an integrated system:
- Honour culture reducing women to symbols.
- Religious texts portraying them as devils, deficient in mind and religion, impure in menstruation, eternal minors under male guardianship, and subject to beating.
- Literary heritage embedding sexual abuse as insult.
- Sexual repression making sex appear only as shame and weapon.
This entire structure explains why Arabs and Muslims so often insult opponents by attacking their women and mentioning their genitals.
Beyond doubt, societies have also produced endless stereotypes of women and femininity: weakness, emotionality, subordination, and obedience to men. These stereotypes shape everyday behaviour and language. Hence the common phrases: “crying like a woman,” “emotional like a woman,” “talks too much like women,” “weak like women” — clichés ingrained in minds and spilling into daily speech.
To attack people’s honour and drag their women and family members into personal quarrels is vileness beyond vileness.
I know how deeply hurtful and humiliating this is for those we love; I myself have suffered for years from the malice of opponents targeting my family.
I can only see this as a despicable act that strips its perpetrator of any moral legitimacy they pretend to possess.
As long as this culture persists, true equality and dignity for women remain unattainable.
Sexual insults are not only personal attacks; they are symptoms of a broader authoritarian and patriarchal system.
Confronting them requires dismantling the very structures that reduce women to vessels of honour and weapons of humiliation.
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