Egyptian Film Director Inas Al-Degheidy: Legalization of Prostitution Would Benefit Egyptian Society

In a recent TV interview, Egyptian film director Inas Al-Degheidy said that she was in favor of legalizing brothels in Egypt. "It's for the benefit of society," she said. Al-Degheidy was speaking on the Egyptian Dream2 TV channel on May 21, 2015.

Following are excerpts:

Inas Al-Degheydi: In foreign countries, you have the freedom to do anything. You are considered respectable even if you [show affection] in public. You see people kissing in the streets...

Interviewer: ...and the police protects them.

Inas Al-Degheydi: Yes, and nobody dates to ask them what they are doing. On the contrary, people are happy to see this. They even take pictures...

Interviewer: Right, because they see a [love] story.

Inas Al-Degheydi: Once, I was sitting at a bar, next to an 80-year-old woman. She was sitting next to her boyfriend - he was not her husband - who was also 80. They were kissing, laughing, and drinking champagne, with their faces all wrinkled with old age. I can't tell you how happy I was to see this. I was happy to see that love has no age. If it happened in Egypt, people would probably be chasing them. Our nature is different. In the West, there is freedom. The problem is here, not there.

[...]

Interviewer: Are you ideologically opposed to the hijab?

Inas Al-Degheydi: I am ideologically opposed to all the commotion about it. I remember, back in the day, when I saw a woman wearing the hijab. Some women in my family, like my grandmother, used to wear the hijab but it did not come across as "the hijab." She was an old country woman, so she would wear a headscarf outdoors.

[...]

Interviewer: Let me ask you a question that no one would imagine me asking: Are licensed whorehouses, which are frequented by young men - in a civilized country like Germany, or in Sweden, or elsewhere... Does this help to relieve sexual urges?

Inas Al-Degheydi: Definitely. To a certain extent.

Interviewer: At one point, there was prostitution in Egypt.

Inas Al-Degheydi: Before the [1952] revolution, in the days of the monarchy, there was prostitution...

Interviewer: They were in the Al-Houd Al-Marsud district in Cairo...

Inas Al-Degheydi: Yes. People used to go there. Many young men would go there. They didn't know what to do with their [sexual] energy, so they would go there. Nowadays, people build gallows for you if you merely say... I know that this is difficult, but it's for the benefit of society.

Interviewer: Have you thought about something like this?

Inas Al-Degheydi: I have said before that I am in favor of legalizing brothels.

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