The sex products Dutch Muslims used to bring back from the Middle East soon available online.
Abdelaziz Aouragh is a Muslim, lives in Amsterdam, and deals in sex articles.
His webshop El Asira, which is for Muslims, will soon be selling Pure Power capsules which “heighten male performance, desire and pleasure”. Desire capsules for women will also be available, sensual stimulators for him and her and lubricants based on cocoa butter, water or silicon. El Asira calls itself “the first Islamic online webshop for sex articles and care products”. Its webshop should be open for business starting this weekend.
The combination of Islam and sex products is not an obvious one. When Aouragh’s business partner, Stefan Delsink, suggested selling sex items, Aouragh was dubious. A day later he agreed. “I knew that Muslims do have a need for sex products. People bring them back from the Middle East and give them to young couples,” he said.
Not knowing whether his religion would allow the trade in sex products, Aouragh visited an imam, who in turn consulted a Saudi sheik. It was allowed, he learned, as long as the products were halal and meant to improve sex within marriage.
[….]Abdelaziz Aouragh (29) is an orthodox Muslim with a Dutch trading instinct. He was born in the east of Amsterdam to a Moroccan carpenter.
[…]As well as making money, Aouragh wants his sex shop to change the image of Islam as hostile to women. “The image of women in the kitchen, submissive, dressed in a burkah isn’t true. There is a lot of love. Islam has a lot of respect for women. Our shop puts the woman at the centre of things.”
[…]The imam who advised El Asira is Boularia Houari, a 35-year-old glass fibre cable technician who gives Koran lessons and preaches on request at various mosques
[…]According to Islam, sex is simple: outside marriage it’s forbidden, within marriage it’s encouraged.
[…]He asks Houari something, then explains that coitus interruptus is allowed but that condoms are preferred. “A condom is better for maximum sexual pleasure because the penis is not withdrawn when orgasm is reached. It’s important in Islam that both men and women reach orgasm. If a woman is not satisfied, she will use impure methods like masturbation or vibrators.”
[…]At Home in Morocco
There are ‘Tupperware parties’ in Morocco for women looking for sex toys, which are not on general sale. “But there are networks, very discrete and well organised, which fill the vacuum,” writes the Moroccan journalist Vanessa Pellegrin on the website casawaves.com.
There are cultural differences. Vibrators are not popular because women do not want to admit their husband’s shortcomings.
A 25 centimetre surrogate penis is too obvious. But a vibrating plastic duck looks like a child’s toy. Pellegrin says religion hardly plays a role. Even women wearing headscarves attend the meetings.
[…more…]
See Also
• El Asira – Note (Mar. 30, 2010): This is the correct link, but if you can not reach the El Asira web site either the server is overloaded (too many visitors at one time) or the site’s bandwidth allotment has been exceeded.
• Muslim Woman Gives Sex Advice on Arab TV
• Christians Promote Holy, Hot Sex in Marriage
Note: This article is quoted from the English-language section of NRC Handelsblad, a quality newspaper published in the Netherlands.