Suppose you are stuck in an arranged marriage to someone disgusting?

Islam offers no answers. To be fair, the competing religions founded on Abraham don't either. I'm tired of the "religious" getting to decide what is moral and what is not. Everyone go read Dawkin's and Hitchen's books.

I really wish Tracy Clark-Flory had asked about clitoridectomies.

Men "need" masturbation, but masturbation is "not a call of nature" for women? Really? Who makes this stuff up?

Somebody should get Kotb and James Dobson together. Except for her being dark-skinned and unsaved (and for his being an imperialist and infidel) they'd get along great!

The difference is that Dobson is considered a certifiable kook by intelligent people in the U.S., while - if this article is to be believed - Kotb's voice is that of a radical.

Although we can't dismiss the danger of Christian fundamentalism - our own cross to bear, I'm afraid - the relative difference in how these people are perceived in their respective societies is illustrative.

So Kotb has cured 30 or 40 men of homosexuality? Well, I guess if I were terrified of being stoned or hanged for being gay, I might be persuaded to pretend I was straight too.

I heard a report on the radio today about a school for women in Morocco. Literacy is apparently fairly low in Morocco, especially for women. The school was inside a mosque, which one woman who was interviewed claimed was crucial - since her husband wouldn't trust her to go to some place where lascivious things might happen - some place like a school!

I'm not a scholar of Islam, and I have no idea why the Muslim world (perhaps with the exception of Turkey) has so thoroughly rejected modernity, but I find their backwardness frightening. There is a level of toxicity in most Muslim culture that every American, every Westerner should find incredibly alarming.

If she weren't an oddity in hijab in a country where the medical establishment has been cowed by the fundamentalists and by Muslim culture, no one would waste an interview with this incompetent purveyor of religiously convenient lies. Her homophobia and her subversion of sexology to reinforce a patriarchal culture, her caricature of science -- all this confirms that she is the antithesis of a genuine practitioner. Salon should be ashamed for giving this woman the publicity.

"I'm totally against homosexuality being considered a gene or natural"

Wow, where to start? She's taking a courageous stance against facts! Facts are haram!

Lady, homosexuality's natural. It might depend on a gene or it may not, but in either case, the facts scoff at your sermonizing.

Like Bush and Rove, she appears to believe that facts are just opinions and can be changed if your whims or your religion demand it.

What's her opinion on contraception?

Seems like an important question, since the birthrate in the Muslim world is unsustainably high; the oil-poor states are starving, and the oil-rich states have no jobs to offer the young.

Encouraging women to be educated and to be active partners in sexual decision-making is a start, but it's not going to bring down the birthrate by itself. For that, you need contraception.

Under Islamic law, no one can be compelled to marriage, and either person can get a divorce by just saying "I divorce you" three times. Further, the woman's property and right to her children is protected.

However, the customs and reality on the ground in Muslim countried can sometimes be very different. Like Afganistan.

Basically, Muslims in my experience do Islam as well as Christians follow the teachings of Jesus.And,like Christians, the louder they scream about other's lack of purity, the more hypocritical they are. But that's pretty much how people are, regardless of religion.

Obviously Dr. Heba Kotb is full of crap when it comes to women masturbating and homosexuality but seriously cut her some slack. You gotta walk before you can run and compared to other voices in the Muslim community she’s practically a radical.

Wait a decade or so, then attack her.

According to a 2005 Unicef report (http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/FGM-C_final_10_October.pdf), 97% of Egyptian women have been subjected to female genital mutilation, including, assumedly, Dr. Heba Kotb. And yet it is not this that she condemns, but female masturbation (and homosexuality, and sex before marriage, and anal sex after marriage, etc…) That this is what passes for progressivism brings into the sharpest relief how oppressive this world view is, to the point where women themselves help perpetuate this culture of victimization.

The Muslims themselves will tell you that women do not rank as high on the list of important people. This doctor will last only as long as the imams allow her to. Then she'll be shut up and put away to rot.

It's all about the men. If they get offended by her, she will no longer exist.

Her husband probably drives her to work, and supervises everything else she does. When she gets complained about, he will be the one to punish her.

Her take on sexuality is a male driven conversation. Lesbians don't exist in these countries, to hear her talk.

But of course reality is far different.

Can't you just see it...Aabid says to Rehana, "come on baby, let's go please Allah. Bring the whipped cream"

Quipped anonymously, so as to retain head on shoulders

But following the example of Mohammed, marrying a 9 year old girl and having sex with her is not.

If you are wondering what I am talking about, look up the story of Aisha, Mohammed's child bride who was still "playing with dolls" when he married her.

And lest you think that this is an old artifact of an ancient time, remember that according to Muslims, Mohammed's life is regarded as the perfect model of behavior. It is his standard that still applies to this day.

that this is the liberal woman breaking out of the box in the Muslim world. BABY STEPS, folks, baby steps. SHe sounds like a real hoot=!