Narrating Sexual Blackmail in Lebanon: A Present-Day Pathography

Abstract

ABSTRACTAn ongoing economic and financial meltdown, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the August 4, 2020 explosion of Beirut Port—since 2019, Lebanon has been assailed by a spiralling confluence of mutually exacerbating crises. The present-day poverty, hunger, and unemployment levels are coeval with an extraordinary rise of similarly hyper-endemic sextortion cases. While drawing on its author’s experience of sexual blackmail in Lebanon, this article narrates the various parameters of this pathology and its trauma—its perpetrators, progression, and victims—in relation to several documented instances of this illness, including three excerpts from my students’ memoirs (2020–2023). The resulting ‘pathography’ reveals sexual blackmail in Lebanon as a nuanced corollary of not only socioeconomic tensions, but also sex stigma. In a context where societal attitudes to sexuality remain, to a significant extent, regressive, being sexually active, regardless of sexual orientation, incurs a status quo of shaming and silencing that most affects the sexual and mental health of the country’s vulnerable groups: youth, particularly women, and queer individuals more generally.KEYWORDS: Sexual blackmailsex stigmasexual scammingyouth memoirspathography Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 A quick search on Google reveals a score of obstetrics and gynecology clinics in Beirut that market hymen reconstruction as a swift (30 to 40-minute) procedure ‘to eliminate your anxiety and bring self-confidence as well as happiness to your life’ (Dagher Citation2023).2 Some details in this pathography have been altered for reasons of privacy; in addition, pseudonyms, where relevant, replace real names throughout the essay.3 The Lebanese University, founded in 1951, is Lebanon’s only public university to date.4 Title IX is a federal law in the United States, prohibiting sex-based discrimination in educational institutions. Currently, both the Lebanese American University and the American University of Beirut operate Title IX offices in their establishments.Additional informationFundingThis article was written during the author’s appointment as Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of International Development at the University of Oxford, courtesy of a research grant, SRDC–S–2022–162, from the Lebanese American University.Notes on contributorsSleiman El HajjSleiman El Hajj is Assistant Professor of Creative and Journalistic Writing in the Department of Communication, Arts and Languages at the Lebanese American University (LAU). He is the recipient of the LAU Faculty Research Excellence Award 2022–2023. His research interests include creative nonfiction, gender studies, narrative constructions of home, queer theory, and Middle Eastern literature.