Titled Jasad, which means “body” in Arabic, Haddad’s magazine includes everything from serious articles about women’s rights in Beruit, to as erotic poetry and stories about the human body. Haddad insists that every author published in her magazine use their real name—which can easily lead to threats of murder, acid-throwing and stoning.
Still, despite the dangers, Haddad continues to produce the magazine, and is dedicated to spreading ideals of respect and independence, resisting the “black cloth” of the burka that “cancels” out the female body. These values, as Haddad told the BBC World Service, are not necessarily Western values, they are human ones.
Elsewhere, other women are also respecting their bodies—by adorning pottery with images of their breasts. In an effort to raise awareness—and maybe other things—Jane Fox, owner of Fired 4 U Pottery (a pre-fab pottery painting studio), is holding the “Painting by Nipples” event, in which women are encouraged to decorate ceramics using impressions of their magnificent mammary mounds.
“It is a bit like when children use their hands and feet to create individual pieces of pottery,” Fox explains, “but instead, women can use the shape of their breasts to make a unique ceramic piece.” Women can join the workshop for a fee. One quarter of the proceeds is earmarked for the U.K.-based Rosemere Cancer Foundation.
And in another corner of the world, a “taboo-breaking” documentary titled Colossi of Love covers a freewheeling time when women from around the globe flocked to the Greek Isle of Rhodes looking for amour—and found it in abundance.
During the ’70s and ’80s, Rhodes had just shed itself of a strict military dictatorship, but tradition mandated that single Greek girls remain in the home, leaving the kamaki, a “once-legendary army of lovers,” to prowl the beaches in hopes of satisfying the island’s many foreign tourists.
“We were like princes,” said Bruno, a former kamaki, who claims to have entertained nearly 4,500 women on vacation. “I used to make love on the beach, in the water, on the rocks, everywhere. For me, making love is living.” And what a life that must have been.