Sexmentality

Abstract

This three-year ethnography scrutinises what drives culture in intentionally made anonymous communities. It is found that the biggest driver is “sexmentality”, the notion whereby communities fundamentally function according to concerns over sex (the term is applied throughout the manuscript to refer to the male–female categorisation). These communities sexualise the unsexual through histories of sex complexes and assign sex-directed thoughts excessive weight. They transform sex-driven preoccupations into power over the members’ habitus, ensuring that they react to sexually figured worlds that are overfed with reminders of one’s sex. They reinforce sexually configured geographic arrangements. They sexualise space and solidify sex-determined perspectives, making them reproducible and conveyable across generations. Although sex-rooted considerations exist in all human communities, what differentiates the communities being researched is the conversion of sex-driven judgements into managerial systems (“sexarchies”) that inculcate members into sex-defined realities. Sexmentalism entails realms of interpretation wherein one’s entire existence is reduced to male–female cataloguing. Like “racementality” (whereby communities are run via race-based configurations), sexmentality entails biology-based compartmentalisation. While the general literature has explored the personal and microlevel impacts of sex fixation, this article goes beyond this to examine structural and macrolevel influences of such a fixation on cultural systems.

Keywords:

• masculinity
• sexism
• gender
• sex
• feminism
• sociology

Public Interest Statement

Every community runs and is run on the authority of distinct approaches. Sexmentality is one such approach, whereby communities act and are managed based on a range of sex-driven deliberations to the extent that they can be said to be possessed by sex-sensitive “demons”. These communities utilise sex-oriented reflections as instructive and regulative criteria for directing individuals and leading contexts. Sexmentality facilitates the adoption and development of principles, movements and policies to promote sexually constructed spheres that require newly formulated rules to preserve a certain distance between the sexes.

1. Introductory remarks

In human society, there is no such thing as a “state of nature” (Hobbes, 2013) in which there is no system that organises and manages. Every social context is run in line with particular approaches, thereby giving rise to such organisational and managerial systems as anarchy, monarchy, oligarchy despotism, barbarism and republicanism. All such systems have been theorised; however, one type that has not been subject to theorisation thus far is “sexarchy”, a political system that governs according to sex complexes, which involve sex fixations and preoccupation. Such complexes exist not merely de facto (in reality) but also de jure (legally) and are exerted over the official configuration of organisations. Sexarchists are anchored to sexual desire, experiencing a sense of sexual focalism, which is a tendency to give excessive weight to sex considerations when reviewing past events, making current decisions and articulating predictions (Al Arja, 2008). Sexarchists sustain and reinforce managerial ideologies wherein sex considerations are given the highest priority over any other (e.g., economic) considerations (Qosheq, 2011). Sexarchists adopt and develop certain principles, actions, movements and policies to promote sexarchist mindsets. In sexarchical systems, individuals are assigned diverse tasks and responsibilities fundamentally based on their biological and genetic makeup, i.e. sex (Al Qamali, 2018).

Sexarchist organisations are organised and managed according to sexarchist interests, and they regard sex-oriented rules as unavoidable and part of the natural and biological necessities of running organisations (Al Rateel, 2015). Although the academic literature sheds light on the personal influence of sex complexes over individuals at microlevels, the scope should be broadened to include conceptualising the structural influence of such complexes over systems at macrolevels (Abu-Zaid, 1999). Sexarchy can be pushed within organisations in an authoritarian way by policymakers who, unlike the organisation’s members, believe that sexual desire should be the determining factor in the social order (Al Bdah, 2010). However, sexarchy can also be initiated, welcomed and supported collectively by the whole organisation, viz. by policymakers and members together, who willingly support the belief that sexual concerns should drive their community (Zamoori, 2011). In this case, sexarchy is implemented democratically, and individuals’ voices and elections show their preference for sexarchistic appeals and pursuits (Bajnaid & Al-Saggaf, 2017).

Almost all social organisations exercise a certain degree of sexarchy, whether small or large. Sexarchist concerns are a feature of all organisations, even though their influence varies from one organisation to another. Sexarchy is skewed either to the right or to the left (Aba-Btain, 2010). A left-wing sexarchy applies “sex reasoning” (Alhazmi, 2013) to create regulations intended to encourage sex against different forms of power, making sex a secular concern and promoting its desirability (i.e. “the desire to have it, to have access to it, to discover it, to liberate it, to articulate it in discourse, to formulate it in truth”, Foucault, 1978, p. 156). Right-wing sexarchy relies on sex reasoning to generate rules that discourage sex, reducing it to silence, reproductive functions and familial institutions (Ebinamara, 2007). Left-wing sexarchist organisations are regulated to be erotically open and active, whereas right-wing equivalents are controlled to be erotically closed and dysfunctional. Left-wing sexarchism promotes a system that enables sexual desire to be fully expressed, while right-wing sexarchism underpins a complete suppression of sex unless expressed in restricted ways. Such restriction generates a sex-defined dual structure with legitimate and illegitimate, and allowed and prohibited sexual actions. This article is concerned with right-wingers who exert intense control over the power relationships among organisation members, patterning deeds and internalising norms in ways that limit the expression of sexual desire.

Sexarchist philosophy is a potential area of research that intellectuals should explore to build a cohesive body of sexarchist social theory. The present article establishes the initial theoretical framework for a non-Western sexarchist system that utilises sex complexes as the criteria and motive for running social contexts. The Western concern of managing sex in non-Western lands has been the subject of an immense body of literature, starting with Said’s book “Orientalism” (Said, 1978), Mohanty’s article “Under Western Eyes” (Mohanty, 2003), Farris’ volume “In the Name of Women’s Rights” (Farris, 2017), Grewal’s “Transnational America” (Grewal, 2005), Northrop’s “Veiled Empire” (Northrop, 2004), Scott’s “Politics of the Veil” (Scott, 2009), Stoler’s “Race and the Education of Desire” (Stoler, 1995), Pollard’s “Nurturing the Nation” (Pollard, 2005) and others.

The author is academically and politically aware that sex in geopolitical, imperial formations is well described and discussed through such works as the above. However, he seeks to put to sleep the long tradition of Western argumentation about the organisation of sex in colonial and post-colonial domains. As a non-Westerner, he hopes to help generate conceptual frameworks native to those domains that normally have others speaking in their behalf. The influence of Western writings on the present article has been calculatedly minimised to avoid the risk of decontextualising the research, skewing its outcome to irrelevant contexts and unmooring it from its cultural essence. These writings emanate from the West; hence, they can be criticised in terms of their cultural applicability. It must be admitted that by doing so, the author takes the political risk of fighting the universalised tyrant of Western academic thought and resisting the unhealthy and politically naïve yet prevalent practice of embellishing non-Western articles with Western theorists. Such a political intention—which, if it becomes normalised, would eventually result in the reduction of the citation value of Western articles—cannot be expected to be positively welcomed by Western journals that are preoccupied with ethically and/or deceitfully fishing for citations to increase their so-called impact factor or CiteScore.

Considering that this article has the political intention to challenge academic conventions and push not only readers but also reviewers out of their comfort zones, the author has unconventionally cited some feedback from the previous reviewers of this manuscript. One reviewer recommended the rejection of the manuscript: “The goal to assist (or fight) the politics of the academic world is a charming dream, maybe for all of us. However, there are places where people can activate their political wishes. I am not sure that a research paper is the right place. Again, this is a game, and the actors should play according to the rules. If you want to publish an academic article in an academic journal, as part of the (Western) academic world, you should play with the impact factor, among others. There are journals without the impact factor. Why does the author not try them?” This reviewer illustrated how many aspects of academia have ended up in the 21^st century wherein publication has been industrialised in the sense that academic freedom, scholarly autonomy and the potential for academic publication are reduced to a series of standard steps similar to a production line for the artisanal craft of producing a box of biscuits or motor car. One wonders how many others share this reviewer’s belief in the industrialisation and mechanisation or, as he has put it, “gamification” of academic publication.

2. Methodology

This article addressed the following research question: To what extent can sex complexes be normalised and turned into a managerial system? To answer this question, a 36-month-long ethnographical gaze was directed at specific communities, encompassing three data collection methods. The first was the analysis of a range of documents (leaflets, newspaper articles, social media posts, handbooks, reports, announcements, memos and regulations). The second was the analysis of offline and online and personal and collective casual conversations with locals and expatriates from different social classes, ethnicities and age cohorts. These conversations were held in cities and remote areas, at public and private events and through unannounced door-knocking. The third data collection method was the analysis of observations. The notes taken during the conversations were informed by and cross-referenced with participant and non-participant observations of daily offline and online activities and events. A number of challenges arose during the data collection process. First, the ethnographical projects in the studied communities were normally carried out within gender lines because of the communal norm of gender separation. Therefore, for this research, male and female data collectors were recruited so that the men could converse with men and observe male-only spaces, and the women could converse with women and observe female-only areas. Second, a socioculturally unrestricted ethnographical enquiry into the female population, even if conducted by females, would have clashed with the sheltered nature and privacy of its female members, which made this population difficult to reach. Thus, the female data collectors were trained to establish peaceful relationships with potential female participants to help them feel comfortable talking about the “female division” despite its socioculturally private nature. Third, the community members disliked being explicit about their culture, especially regarding their tradition of male–female categorisation. Members of sexarchist communities typically do not want to be explicit about their ways of living, particularly about sex, or to publicly articulate their sex experiences and opinions. Given their sex complexes, they may think that sex-related discourse is private, taboo and sinful. Considering that sexual desire is the most sensitive issue in sexarchist organisations, such a matter cannot be easily empirically inspected and documented.

The author has maintained the anonymity of the studied communities, which was a negotiated condition for obtaining access to and permission for data collection in these communities. The author was concerned that revealing these communities could place him at political risk. Anonymising the communities helped the author talk about these communities freely, without worrying that he may offend them. That said, this manuscript cannot claim to be completely inoffensive, but the risk of being disrespectful and insulting is a necessary precondition for free articulation and critical writing. Critique-driven academic enquirers and writers cannot entirely eliminate the risk that they will come across as offensive, but they can minimise it. This minimisation has been accomplished in this article by anonymising the communities under study. It must be admitted that the literature review performed in this article is somehow compromised, as it does not cite any references that state the names or identities of the studied communities in order to ensure anonymity. That being said, references to the studied communities are limited; hence, not citing them does not substantially impact the quality of the current article.

As shown in Figure 1, the data were analysed in line with the parameters of thematic techniques. The data were broken down into marks, and similar groupings were combined into micro, meso and, eventually, macro visions. This inductive and analytical process also entailed a deductive approach in which the emerging visions were fed back into the data collection progression. The inductively and deductively unveiled macro vision was “sexmentality”, which signified communities dwelling and being administered in conformity with sexually informed calculations. In the section that follows, brackets are inserted at the end of every finding sentence, which contain the name of the mark, its order in the dataset and its source, which can be the analysed documents (D), conversation notes (C) or observations (O). For example, (sexualised music, 6, C) refers to the mark “music” numbered 6 in the dataset of the conversation notes.

Figure 1. Data collection and analysis.

3. Analysis

The emerging theory underpins the assumed perception of sexarchy, a structural system that exerts considerable influence over the various aspects of organisations in ways that demonstrate fixations on sexual desire. This influence takes three forms (i.e. three meso visions that emerged analytically): ontological, epistemological and axiological control. These three meso visions are explored below.

3.1. Meso vision: ontology

Sexarchy has been discovered to promote the physicalisation of sex complexes, transforming these complexes into a static, sex-defined reality. Sex reasoning is objectified in two physical components of organisations: structure and instrument. In other words, structurality and instrumentation are utilised as instruments for inserting sexual concerns into organisations and placing sex-driven anxiety at the forefront of the minds and attention of the actors. What follows is a discussion of the two elements of structurality and instrumentation. Each element represents one of the two micro visions that emerged analytically, which together mould the present meso vision of ontological control.

3.1.1. Micro vision: structure

The data analysis showed how the “built environment” (Handy et al., 2002) was configured and shaped to mirror sex reasoning. This manifested as sex segregation—or “sexregation”, as (Rapp, 1999), prefers to call it—wherein the door of the house traditionally divides the entire community into two domains: the female inside-the-house domain and the male outside-the-house domain (sexualised house door, 2845, O). Furthermore, high concrete walls surround the entire property and contain no holes, preventing passers-by from seeing inside. Males are mainly associated with the outside-the-house domain, and females with the inside-the-house domain (sexualised space, 363, C). This association is so well-established that it is thought that when a woman steps outside the home’s door, the devil immediately starts to escort her until she returns home. When a female opens the door to leave the house, she may need to take certain actions, such as gaining oral permission from a male guardian or being escorted by a close male relative. When she is outside the domestic domain, a female may have to wrap her whole body, including her hair, face and hands, with loose fabric that conceals it. This fabric is a sign that she is not supposed to be there (sexualised fabric, 1831, O). Many restaurants are divided into small rooms with closed doors (with one family per room), which constitute a temporary domestic domain for female family members (sexualised dining, 1240, O). However, other restaurants do not have such rooms; instead, they offer female customers long, movable, flexible and opaque partitions that they use to put a border around themselves and their dining table, thereby forming a female domestic domain.

Female contact information is considered private and confidential (sexualised contact, 2231, O). When a female’s contact details are required, she tends to provide the information of her male relatives. Customarily, a man does not know the names of his friends’ wives, mothers or any other adult female relatives (sexualised name, 672, O). Since houses of worship are located in the public domain, only men normally go. At funerals, there are no women. The act of placing a dead body in the ground is reserved for the male relatives. Anyone can visit the graves; that said, only men are allowed in the graveyard. Airport customs have private female-only rooms (sexualised customs, 1102, O). Inside them, female officers check the identities of female travellers with covered faces. The windows of some cars are covered with a one-way film through which passengers can see out but passers-by cannot see in. The film prevents the males on the street, i.e. members of the public domain, from seeing the female passengers, i.e. members of the domestic domain (sexualised car, 2822, O). On beaches and in deserts, some females build temporary fabric walls or use their cars as borders between themselves and the male public domain (sexualised outing, 140, O).

In the light of these findings, it can be said that sexually driven reasoning is the foremost factor in determining the societal circle to which one belongs. The spatial components of sexarchist organisations are “inscribed spaces” on which a community “writes” their own sensual complexes. These components project the “formula” of sex-informed geographic arrangements and have “biographies” that detail sexarchist concerns. These biographies can be “read” (Star, 1999) as records of sex reasoning almost in the same way as historical scientists read landscapes and remains. This speaks of the power relationship between human power and space, with the former utilising the latter as a managerial tool for reinforcing their sex idée fixe. This leads to the sexarchistisation of the space and, consequently, its spatialisation, thus solidifying sexarchy. Given their formed solid nature, sexarchist concerns can then be passed on and conveyed from generation to generation, enabling the past to sexmentally frame the present. This continuity of sexmentalism implies that sexarchist organisations enable cultural reproduction and exercise historical (specifically, temporal) influence across generations.

Moreover, the data analyses revealed the domestic fabric to be structured in compliance with sex-derived carefulness. Sex-reasoned separation is implemented inside houses and other private spaces, such as private farms, which are made up of male- and female-only living rooms (sexualised domesticity, 1560, O). This setting implies that hosts only invite guests of the same sex into such rooms. This separation also occurs outside houses in public spaces, such as wedding venues, barbershops and many workplaces (sexualised public, 2474, O). These spaces offer male- and female-only buildings, wings or sections, and each sex is not allowed to access the areas that belong to the other. The female-only area is perceived as private, sheltered and bordered by long, concrete walls (sexualised protection, 424, O). A sign is placed by the door of the single-sex zone that specifies the sex for which it is reserved. Some female-only spheres (e.g., beauty salons) are protected by security guards. Friends and colleagues customarily do not socialise in the company of their spouses (sexualised socialisation, 1812, O), double-date or even introduce their spouses to one another. Workplaces lack work-related occasions and parties to which colleagues can bring their partners. It is possible for the authorities to stop couples and ask them for proof of a marital relationship. Non-related individuals of different sexes must not meet, whether individually or collectively, or privately or publicly (sexualised socialisation, 686, C). Cross-sex friendships, collegial relationships and non-marital relationships must be prevented, whether they take a digital or non-digital form. Because males are only used to talking to males, it is common for a male to mistakenly address a female he encounters as a man, such as by using male pronouns. Similarly, because females do not talk to many men outside their family circle, when a female talks to a male, she may unintentionally address him using female pronouns.

3.1.2. Micro vision: instrument

There was consistent evidence from the data that mobility and transportation are designed to adhere to sex-associated beliefs. The windows of school buses for female students are covered with a one-way film through which people inside can see out, but those outside cannot see in (sexualised bus, 3056, O), which prevents people on the street from seeing the female passengers. Vehicle registration plates contain three letters and cannot display the word “sex” (sexualised car-plate, 2115, O). Driving is male-dominated, and women are almost absent from the roads (sexualised driving, 3015, O). Females do not drive trucks, buses, mini-buses or pick-up cars, and there are hardly any female taxi or ridesharing drivers. In a taxi, female passengers cannot sit in the front seat, since, culturally, the seat next to the (male) driver is reserved for a woman related to the driver (sexualised seating, 982, O). Many families assign the front passenger seat to the oldest family member as a sign of respect, but if the oldest member of the family is female, making the issue sex versus age, then sex predominantly wins, and a male is given the front seat. Checkpoints are common between and within cities. A driver is less likely to get stopped at these checkpoints if there is a woman in the car because the policemen are afraid of being accused of looking at another man’s wife (sexualised checkpoint, 2161, O). On the street, one does not talk to people of the other sex, e.g., to ask for directions (sexualised enquiry, 735, O). A male pedestrian only asks other males for directions, while a female only asks other females. In public, if a man lets a female stranger go first through a door that he was holding open for her, she may not thank him for that courtesy because doing so may be perceived as communication across sex lines (sexualised thanks, 2130, O).

Sex segregation exists in almost all human settings but to different degrees and in different forms, e.g., in restrooms, prisons and parking spaces. However, what made the studied organisations stand out was the transformation of sex separation into a managerial system and the technologisation of this separation. It was evident from the raw data that in the studied communities, technological instruments (digital and non-digital) are at times forced to conform to sex-driven beliefs. In higher-education institutions, males neither teach, supervise, examine nor manage females face to face unless this teaching, supervision, examination or management is performed under one of the following technology-based conditions. First, males can teach females if they do so through a glass wall (sexualised non-digital teaching, 1216, O). Male teachers and female students occupy a single classroom with a glass wall separating the two parties. Second, males can teach females if they do so via an internal videoconferencing network (sexualised digital teaching, 2543, O) wherein the male teachers and the female students are located in separate rooms on the same campus and communicate through the network. Third, female students can attend the same classes as their male counterparts but only through videoconferencing systems (sexualised shared classrooms, 665, O), and the male- and female-only classrooms are connected through these systems. Male teachers can only be physically present in male-only classrooms. Fourth, male teachers cannot supervise female students for higher degrees unless the supervision is done through postal exchange, telephone, email and/or WhatsApp (sexualised supervision, 598, O). Fifth, males do not conduct oral examinations for females unless they are done over a videoconferencing system (sexualised examination, 3045, O). PhD oral examinations (aka the defence or viva) can be public events and used to be broadcast on the radio—but only for male examinations. Sixth, if a university department is home to only female faculty members, the head can be male or female, but if the department has both male and female faculty members, the head must be male (sexualised management, 3098, O). Some wives forbid their husbands from teaching females even when this is done entirely via technological means and even though male teachers are not supposed to ever meet their female students in person or know what they look like. In the communities, people (either married or single) can be said to be psychologically undeveloped or “un-grown-up” when it comes to communicating with the other sex. They lack confidence in their dealings with people of the other sex to the extent that they are scared to be left alone with them and minimise communication with them. Like teenagers, most people in these communities do not know how to healthily interact with the other sex.

3.2. Meso vision: epistemology

3.2.1. Micro vision: instruction

It was apparent from the gathered data that instruction is subject to sexualising decisions, as seen in the implementation of sex separation in two educational settings. Setting 1 is schools wherein the locals are restricted to male- and female-only educational institutions (sexualised schooling, 1453, O). Male relatives, employers and employees cannot access female-only schools and vice versa. Many fathers even avoid phoning their daughters’ female teachers to enquire about their daughters’ performance (sexualised parenting, 2434, C). When a father picks up his daughter from school—whether it is a primary, middle or secondary school—he is required to give his ID to the school security guard who is intentionally chosen to be elderly and male and stays in a booth by the school gate with a microphone connected to a loudspeaker located in the schoolyard (sexualised pick-up, 647, O). The guard then calls the daughter’s name, and she comes out of the school gate to meet her father. Setting 2 is universities, which are divided into male- and female-only campuses (sexualised campus, 577, O). Sex separation is practised during ceremonies (sexualised ceremony, 1971, O); hence, a female student is unable to invite her father, husband or brother to her graduation ceremony. The nature of a female-only campus, including its gossip, is a closed book to males and vice versa (sexualised gossip, 2732, C). In recent years, however, some males and females have started to share experiences that take place on their sex-specific campuses on the Internet (e.g., through Twitter and web-based forums) and digitally expose their sex-specific campus to the other sex, thus desexmentalising their society. The preservation of the physical separation of the sexes mainly persists, as reported by some interviewees, because of the social concern that the sexes may engage in illicit intercourse.

An educational system for females has invaded the examined context despite the pushback from sexarchist mindsets. Despite this defeat on the part of the sexarchists, they have not retreated; instead, they have shifted their focus to influence the content of the female educational system by introducing a curriculum specific to female education. This research gathered evidence that curricula are formed in agreement with sex-concerned precautions. For example, only females undertake home economics, a course that teaches females how to be effective members of their domestic sphere (sexualised syllabus, 612, D). Males neither study nor specialise in home economics. In general, the content of both the female and male educational systems is subject to sexarchistisation; for example, sex education does not exist, and no erotic content is taught at educational organisations. Libraries and bookstores offer books on everything within married life except sex-related topics. Sex is treated by writers as an off-limits topic, and even if publications address it, they restrict themselves to general, vague and faith-based information. There are no sociological books that talk about sex openly beyond novels and poems, and the same applies to scholarly publications (sexualised publication, 2183, D). Sex shops do not exist (sexualised shopping, 2493, O). In short, sex in sexarchist organisations is uneducationable, unresearchable and unnegotiable. It is not seen by sexarchists as a value in itself, and talking about sex to others publicly is considered impolite and even offensive. Although sex is one of the most sensitive issues, it is the least formally discussed and documented.

The analysed data suggested that sports education is subject to sexualisation. Traditionally, females neither teach nor specialise in sports education due to the social belief that sports are inconsistent with the female nature (sexualised sports education, 313, D). At the beginning of the school day, male students stand in line and perform a collective exercise guided by a sports educator. This exercise is not done in female schools (sexualised work-out, 760, C). Conventionally, males are the only ones who go to football clubs and sports arenas (sexualised arena, 1282, O). Females do not ride bikes or motorbikes for transport, fun or fitness (sexualised riding, 172, O). There used to be no gyms for women, but female-only gyms have been established recently (sexualised gym, 3033, D). Given the existence of sex-separated gyms, however, couples cannot go to the gym together. Outdoor activities (e.g., swimming) tend to be for children and males, not females (sexualised swimming, 1196, O), and it is usually fathers who take their children to the swimming pool. On a private farm, for instance, a single swimming pool has swimming times divided into two sessions: one for males and the other for females. Females are known for not being good at swimming due to the lack of places where they can receive professional training.

3.2.2. Micro vision: regulation

Policies and rules are made to preserve the regulation of the relationship between the sexes. No permission for any developmental project, reform or initiative is granted unless sexarchist considerations are presented. In sexarchist organisations, sex reasoning controls social order and interactions. Evidence from the data demonstrated that some regulations are at times sexually biased towards females. For instance, female professors and teachers can take parental leave, whereas their male counterparts cannot (sexualised leave, 1110, D). Likewise, when family members go out or travel together, males typically pay for everything and everyone (sexualised expense, 1947, I). Even if a wife’s salary is higher than her husband’s, he still has a legal obligation to finance her expenses. In the same manner, marriage is free for females but costs males a considerable amount of money, including paying brides thousands of US dollars in cash. Although a female can enter shopping malls alone, a male at times cannot unless escorted by a woman (sexualised access, 2411, O). For example, only males accompanied by females are allowed to enter female-specific clothing shops (sexualised shopping, 971, O). Baby-changing rooms are only located within females’ restrooms, implying that females are the only ones who can undertake child-rearing tasks (sexualised rearing, 1591, O) and that such tasks are never conducted by a male even if he is a single father. In general, a single father needs to find a female partner to socially rescue him.

On other occasions, the regulations are sexually customised to favour males. For instance, many academic majors and occupations (e.g., judges, flight attendants, police officers, electricians, plumbers, engineers, soldiers, and workers at gas stations, tyre shops and car-service centres) are exclusive to males (sexualised major, 292, O). Traditionally, employers will request a potential female employee to bring a letter from her male guardian stating that he will allow her to take a job. Some individuals do not want their female family members to specialise or work as nurses or medical doctors because the sexes socialise closely and loosely in medical schools and hospitals. Officially, there are hardly any female preachers and issuers of cultural rulings. As a result, it is males who issue rulings on female concerns, including menstrual cycles, and teach females about female-specific cases (sexualised authority, 2808, O). A public invitation to a public lecture is, by default, entirely for males unless explicitly stated otherwise, i.e. that it is also for women (sexualised lecture, 924, O). Many conference presenters and writers specialising in female topics are males (sexualised conference, 2351, O). Many families do not permit their female members to go to university or work at night, so classes for females tend to take place in the morning or early afternoon (sexualised shift, 1053, C). There has been an initiative to welcome females to regional literary clubs, but campaigns have been launched against this initiative (sexualised literary, 1475, D). Youth hostels are solely for males (sexualised accommodation, 2324, I). There are hardly any female backpackers, since many norms and values of backpacking are seen as inconsistent with the social nature of females. Females do not ordinarily agree to sleep on bunk beds in shared dorm rooms, especially if they are mixed-sex. Only males can visit graveyards (sexualised graveyard, 2988, D). Fishing is a male-dominated activity (sexualised fishing, 1772, O). Many males use the phrase “I swear I will divorce my wife if you … ” to threaten others (who are not their wife) to do certain things (sexualised swearing, 197, O). For example, a male may say to potential guests, “I swear I will divorce my wife if you [i.e. his guests] do not come over to my house for dinner tonight.” Blood donations are more common among males than females as a result of the common belief that giving blood is not healthy for females (sexualised donation, 1326, O).

3.3. Meso vision: axiology

Sexarchy develops “managerial psychologies” and “political cultures” that shape organisation members’ “habitus” (Bourdieu, 1977), including their possessions, moral systems, awareness, consciousness, beliefs, identities, emotions, senses, languages, stereotypes, mental habits, memories and deeds. It exerts two main forms (micro visions) of axiological influence: aesthetical (the nature of art, beauty and taste, including painting, photography, music and poetry) and ethical (the perceptions of “right” and “good” in personal and organisational actions). What follows is a discussion of these two micro visions, which together form the current meso vision of axiological control.

3.3.1. Micro vision: aesthetics

Sexarchist agendas affect not only metaphysical and cognitive matters, but they also aesthetically influence art, beauty and taste. For example, sexarchist organisations forbid pictures of the female body from being displayed in learning spaces, such as exhibitions, in addition to the prohibition of any erotic or nudity-related objects even for educational purposes. Individuals are repressed from freely expressing erotic concerns. Owing to this repression, many people have various roundabout ways of expressing their erotic desire. For instance, graffiti in restrooms revealing people’s erotic desires is common. People also turn to literature, e.g., novels, for erotic expression. Erotic materials—whether physical or digital, or visual or textual—are banned through carefully designed programmes. Erotic pictures, videos, games and even texts tend to be blocked through an elaborate community-wide system (sexualised Internet, 1604, D) that filters out digital as well as physical content, e.g., websites and books. In short, when it comes to sex, sexarchist organisations consider all their members as minors and attempt to prevent them from being exposed to sex. Media platforms intentionally avoid the use of the term “sex”, replacing it with “male–female relationship” or “family education” (sexualised media, 703, O). Males are culturally forbidden from wearing any gold (either yellow or white), including engagement and wedding rings (sexualised metal, 1783, D). Neither can they wear cloaks made of pure silk (sexualised fabric, 846, D).

The data drew attention to the sexualisation of the arts. In the performing arts, music is masculinised. In the history of the area in question, there are hardly any female composers, female adult a cappella singers and female instrumental singers (sexualised music, 2777, D). Until recently, females were not communally permitted to write poems about intimacy; hence, they used to publish poems using nicknames and false profile pictures (sexualised poets, 2934, D). Males do not dance with females, meaning that people do not engage in swing or ballroom dancing (sexualised dancing, 449, I). In many families, people of one sex do not dance with those of the other even if they are related. For some males, dancing with females is considered to undermine masculinity, and some couples do not dance together. With regard to the visual arts, there is no picture culture for the female face and body, meaning that there are no female faces to be seen on walls or advertisements (sexualised ad, 914, O). It is normal for people not to have pictures of their sisters, mothers or grandmothers by which to remember them (sexualised memory, 1864, C). Many female users of social networks do not use photos of their faces for their profile pictures; instead, they use pictures of animals, babies, cartoon characters or celebrities (sexualised profile, 2303, O). There are male- and female-only photo studios (sexualised studio, 1378, O), and the latter must maintain an excellent public reputation and demonstrate their ability to keep the taken pictures of females strictly confidential. A few decades ago, such studios did not exist because they—and the concept of photographing females in general—were socially resisted. Most university websites publish news reports about their female campuses but do not include photos of their female students or lecturers (sexualised website, 374, O). There are no CCTV cameras on female-only campuses or any places where females can be unveiled (sexualised surveillance, 1233, O). Smartphones are sometimes not sanctioned on female-only campuses, at wedding venues or in other situations wherein females might take off their veils to prevent people from taking photos of unveiled females (sexualised phones, 715, O). Metal detectors are sometimes erected to ensure that female attendees do not bring cameras into female-only places. If a photocopy of an ID card is required in any situation, some females cover the photo of the copy with tape (sexualised photocopy, 3003, O). Family IDs, which are issued to males only, do not show photos of wives (sexualised card, 2618, O). Many wedding invitations only note the groom’s name and the name of the bride’s father because the female name is socially perceived to be private. Family trees only display male members (sexualised data, 1038, D), and many family or indeed any public pictures only include male family members (sexualised photography, 1903, D). By default, there are no female changing rooms in shops due to concerns over hidden cameras (sexualised room, 1992, O).

The lower part of the human body is mentally sexualised. For instance, the male thigh is seen as provocative for females and males alike (sexualised thigh, 1667, O), so males always cover their thighs whether in the presence of females or other males, e.g., in male-only gyms. Security guards do not allow people to enter shopping malls if they are wearing shorts that reveal any part of their thigh, and the authorities may stop a male wearing shorts above the knee. Some people disapprove of watching international football teams because the players’ thighs are exposed. For weddings, short dresses, e.g., cocktail dresses, are discouraged even at female-only events and occasions because they are short and, therefore, reveal the females’ legs (sexualised leg, 778, O). Some females are allowed by their parents to wear short dresses only if they also wear tights. Female faces, arms and legs displayed on imported products, e.g., imported gym machines, are sometimes pixelated or obscured with black ink or tape. Females commonly do not wear high heels in public (sexualised foot, 890, O). Many swearwords employ female-related phrases, such as “your mother’s vagina” or “your sister’s vagina” (sexualised genitals, 1078, O). Such swearing tends to be done by males. References are made to mothers’ and sisters’ private parts instead of fathers’ or brothers’ because swearing that is related to female family members is considered more insulting, given that females are associated with morality and family honour. To congratulate the groom on his wedding day, people say, “May you provide money, and may she provide children” (sexualised uterus, 386, O). This type of saying suggests that society sees parents in terms of their ability to provide. If a father cannot provide money, he is judged negatively, and if a mother does not provide children, she is also perceived negatively.

The upper part of the human body is also subject to mental sexualisation. Females cover their bodies, hair, faces and sometimes hands in the presence of anyone with whom she is eligible to be in a marital relationship, including immediate cousins, ex-husbands, brothers-in-law and adopted sons (sexualised hair, 228, O; sexualised face, 1648, O). Some refuse to shake hands with anyone with whom they are eligible to be in a marital relationship (sexualised hand, 444, O). During their menstrual cycles, females are forbidden from touching holy books, pray, fast or have intercourse. To bypass this prohibition, they wear gloves or cover their hands with tissues to be able to hold such books. Males wash certain parts of their bodies to ready themselves for prayer. This readiness, however, is broken if a male touches a woman, e.g., by shaking her hand. Males do not pierce their ears (sexualised ear, 2961, O), as it is exclusively for females. The act of chewing gum is viewed by some as a sign of femininity (sexualised mouth, 2584, I). Couples do not kiss in the presence of others, including their children. When parents watch TV with their child, some may immediately cover the child’s eyes with their hand if any kissing acts are shown on the TV. One never performs romantic gestures in front of one’s children. Romance occurs only inside the house, and even there, it is restricted to the bedroom. Hugging one another does not take place across sex lines (sexualised chess, 1330, I). Many people do not even feel comfortable hugging their siblings of the opposite sex, seeing it as inappropriate. The upper part of the arm is considered provocative for females (sexualised arm, 434, O), so it is traditionally regarded as unacceptable for males to wear tank tops. A male can teach females face to face only if he is blind (sexualised eye, 2021, O). When a male speaks to a female, he avoids eye contact and does not look at her eyes, face or even body; instead, he looks down at the ground or towards the horizon. When a female needs to be alone in a car with an unrelated driver, she often sits in the back seat, particularly the left seat behind the driver to make it difficult for him to see her and make eye contact through the rear mirror. If a male runs into a friend while accompanying a female relative, they may not talk to each other or even make eye contact due to the presence of the female relative. Some believe in the concept of “eye adultery”, which refers to the practice of staring (or merely looking) at a woman, even one who is fully covered.

3.3.2. Micro vision: ethics

The data indicated that sex reasoning turns or is turned into power in organisations that make all matters revolve around sexual concerns exclusively rather than around individuals irrespective of their sex categories. This power converts the organisation’s members into sex objects and controls the ways they perceive the world by manipulating their understanding of not only the other sex but also themselves. Human beings do not function unless in response to a “figured world” (Holland et al., 1998), and members of sexarchist organisations are directed into a sexually figured world. This is a socially produced and culturally constructed realm of interpretation in which organisation members are recognised as either male or female, strong sex values are assigned to acts and sexual concerns are prioritised over others. In this sex-oriented world, one is constantly reminded of one’s sex. One’s worth is tied to sex perceptions.

A “true woman” is a social label that many females actively strive to gain. Such a label is granted to females who uphold the following cardinal virtues: the first is religiousness (sexualised religiosity, 2654, I), and as a result, females tend (or pretend) to be more religious than males and are typically the enforcer of religion in the household. It is more common for women to complete a degree in religious studies. The second is virginity (sexualised virginity, 559, I). The lives of single females are constrained in terms of activities, such as football, ice skating and horse riding, because they are believed to engender the accidental loss of one’s virginity. Sports are judged to be a risk to female virginity, which is crucial to maintain because most single males want to marry a virgin woman. The third virtue is submission (sexualised submission, 2563, I). Obedience is a quality that many males require in their potential spouses. Societally speaking, females are supposed to always be sexually available to their husbands. Put simply, a woman has to agree whenever her husband wants intercourse. There is a widely held belief that if she refuses, angels will say “damn you” to her until she changes her mind. The fourth is domesticity (sexualised domesticity, 2627, O). Males use the term “home” or “family” to refer to their wives, revealing the sense of domesticity that is attached to marital relationships. If a male asks his friend, “Where were you last night?”, the friend might reply, “The home wanted me to do something.” For many male marriage-seekers and their mothers, cooking is a key skill that a potential wife must have, and it is the duty of good mothers to train their female children to be good cooks from an early age. Normally, males do not cook for themselves or wash dishes, nor can they be found in the kitchen. If a male is known to enter his kitchen, such as to cook or wash dishes, other people may think that he is dominated by his wife and laugh at him.

The fifth is shyness (sexualised emotion, 2917, I). It is thought that females should be shy or at least act as if they are. The sixth is femininity (sexualised identity, 2871, D). Educational organisations have resisted the recent phenomenon of “female boys”. They disapprove of young female students who cut their hair short, use male body language, wear male clothes and place their hands on other females’ shoulders. It is not acceptable for males to wear their hair long because males are not supposed to act like females. If a male were to keep his hair long, he would likely be criticised for being feminine or a bad person. By the same token, some mothers do not permit their daughters to cut their hair short owing to the conviction that females are not supposed to behave like males. In short, the biological division between the sexes is clearly formulated, and no one is entitled to cross it. The seventh virtue is dependency (sexualised dependency, 2792, O). Males are raised to nurture and lead the female members of their families, and females are raised to be taken care of and led. As such, many males develop a desire to nurture and lead their female relatives, while many females develop a desire for males to take care of and lead them. A male’s masculinity depends on how helpful he is to his female relatives; for example, a male would not be considered a man if he did not carry his female relatives’ bags. The more comfortable and less tired a male makes his female relatives, the more of a man he is sociably perceived to be.

Nobility and honour are profoundly affected by sexualisation. When people compliment a female for being noble, they refer to her as the sister of noble males (sexualised nobility, 2747, I). The compliment does not go directly to her but rather through her brothers. A male’s wife is widely considered to be a symbol of his honour. If people were to talk negatively about a male’s wife, he would defensively respond, “Don’t touch my honour!” (sexualised honour, 2713, O). The whole family’s reputation suffers when a female makes a moral mistake. A husband is judged by what his wife wears, i.e. whether she wears modest clothes and covers her entire body, showing that her clothing symbolises her reputation and, more importantly, the reputation of the whole family (sexualised reputation, 253, I). If a wife has a reputation as a bad girl, all her male and female siblings are at risk of being unmarriageable, but if a male makes the same mistake, he is the only one whose reputation suffers. Given these contradictory social attitudes, if the authorities observe an unrelated male and female spending time together, they will normally arrest the male and release the female so as not to ruin her family’s reputation. Femaleness is the most sensitive issue in the examined groups, and society struggles to set up regulations and laws for females.

Male jealousy is seen by many males and females as a social value (sexualised jealousy, 2219, C). Because of jealousy, some male drivers avoid talking to male strangers, e.g., a policeman at a checkpoint or a cashier in a drive-thru business, through the window of the front passenger seat if a female relative is sitting in that seat. The stranger either walks around the vehicle to the driver’s side to talk to him through his window, or the driver gets out of the car to talk to the stranger. Jealousy is a source of pride for many. For some husbands, the more jealous they feel, the prouder of themselves they are. Some males measure their masculinity not according to how muscular and tough they are but rather how jealous and protective they are of their female relatives. Male jealousy is also positive for many females: the more jealous a wife’s husband is, the more loved and cared for she feels. A man who does not show an elevated level of jealousy towards his wife, such as not allowing her to socialise with men, is likely to be socially labelled a cuckold.

4. Concluding remarks

Every community runs and is run on the authority of distinct approaches (Abdulrahman, 2001). Sexmentality is one such approach that has been discovered in the current research and unpacked in this article. This manuscript detailed communities that act and are managed based on a range of sex-driven deliberations to the extent that they can be said to be possessed by sex-sensitive “demons”. These communities utilise sex-oriented reflections as instructive and regulative criteria for directing individuals and leading contexts. In these communities, sexmentality has facilitated the adoption and development of principles, movements and policies to promote sexually constructed spheres that require newly formulated rules to preserve a certain distance between the sexes. The two sexes are kept apart, and the power relationship between them is deactivated with the intention of achieving a sense of institutional and communal sexual stability. The sexmental philosophy would benefit from additional theorisation in the future. A sexarchistic system forms an authoritative structure that assigns to each sex distinct identities and roles, which the sexes not only play but embrace and advocate. Sexarchy lies between the microlevel of desire and the macrolevel of politics, power and management. There is the potential to add “sexmentality” and “sexarchy” to the lexicon. Further research should be conducted to understand how different types of institutions in sexmental communities internalise sexarchy as a product of negotiation and in flux (e.g., governmental versus private organisations and model institutions versus regular ones).

Sexmentality is presented in the current article not as a construct or reflection of sex separation but as a mentality (thus, the second part of the term “sexmentality” is mentality) with which people perceive the world. It was noticed during the process of data collection that concerns over sex had essentially grown into a complex that exerted substantial influence on the mentality of the members. Hence, the author felt the need to coin the word “sexmentality” to capture and illustrate the situation of the studied communities. It should be emphasised that it is impossible to grow as a communal culture when the sexes are separated. Hence, although the studied culture claims social collectivity and societal solidity by having “one culture”, its collectivity and solidity are fragmented by the separation of the sexes. The male and female domains preserve their own habitus, meaning that the members of one domain regard the other domain and its members as foreign. The current work can be seen through the lens of Giddens’ theory of structuralism (Giddens, 1987) wherein agential power is exercised within structures. Put simply, sexarchistic power, which forms an authoritative force, shapes how communities are structured. As the habitus is the mentality (here, sexmentality) according to which individuals see the social world around them and react to it, Bourdieu’s theory also becomes relevant (Bourdieu, 1977).

Conflict

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Data Availability Statement

Data will not be available, because they are confidential.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Abdulrahman Essa Al Lily

Professor Al Lily is an Oxford graduate, dean of research, Saudi full professor, editor-in-chief and bestselling author. He has published 28 ISI/Scopus-indexed articles with leading global publishers (Elsevier, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, SAGE, Cogent, Palgrave, Nature Research and Oxford). For more information. ORCID: 0000-0002-5116-422X. Website: https://abdulallily.wordpress.com/