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Exercising in comfort: Islamicate culture of Mahremiyet in everyday Istanbul

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Sehlikoglu, Sertaç  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5149-8393

Abstract

Women's control of their bodily movements, especially in the Islamicate contexts of the Middle East, constitutes a multilayered process of building privacy, heterosexuality, and intimacy. Physical exercise, however, with the extensive body movements it requires, problematizes women's ability to control their public sexualities. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2011 and 2012 in Istanbul, this article explores the everyday concerns of Istanbulite women who seek rahatlik (comfort) during exercise. The interviewees frequently used the word rahatlik when referring to women-only spaces in the culture of mahremiyet (intimacy, privacy). This article furthers the scholarship on Muslim sexualities by examining the diversity of women's concerns regarding their public sexualities and the boundary-making dynamics in the culture of mahremiyet. I argue that mahremiyet operates as an institution of intimacy that provides a metacultural intelligibility for heteronormativity based on sexual scripts, normative spaces, and gendered acts.

Description

Keywords

Islamicate Sexualities, Turkey, Islam, Modesty

Journal Title

Journal of Middle East Women's Studies

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1552-5864
1558-9579

Volume Title

12

Publisher

Duke University Press
Sponsorship
British Institute at Ankara British Institute of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies