The Arab Bed Spring? Sexual rights in troubled times across the Middle East and North Africa

In recent decades, attitudes in many parts of the Arab region have hardened towards non-conforming sexualities and gender roles, a shift fuelled in part by a rise in Islamic conservatism and exploited by authoritarian regimes. While political cultures have proved slow to change in the wake of the 'Arab Spring', a growing freedom of expression, and increasing activity by civil society, is opening space for discreet challenges to sexual taboos in a number of countries, part of wider debates over human rights and personal liberties in the emerging political and social order.