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While the Western world adheres to a beauty ideal that says women can never be too thin, the semi-nomadic Moors of the Sahara desert have for centuries cherished a feminine ideal of extreme fatness. Voluptuous immobility is thought to beautify girls' bodies, hasten the onset of puberty, heighten their sexuality and ripen them for marriage. From the time of the loss of their first milk teeth, girls are directed to eat huge bowls of milk and porridge in one of the world's few examples of active female fattening. Based on fieldwork in an Arab village in Niger, 'Feeding Desire' analyses the meanings of women's fatness as constituted by desire, kinship, concepts of health, Islam, and the crucial social need to manage sexuality. By demonstrating how a particular beauty ideal can only be understood within wider social structures and cultural logics, the book also implicitly provides a new way of thinking about the ideal of slimness in late Western capitalism. Offering a reminder that an estimated 80% of theworld's societies prefer plump women, this gracefully written book is both a fascinating exploration of the nature of bodily ideals and a highly readable ethnography of a Saharan people.

Muslim women --- Women, Arab --- Overweight women --- Sex customs --- Body image in women --- Human body --- Musulmanes --- Femmes arabes --- Femmes obèses --- Vie sexuelle --- Image du corps chez la femme --- Corps humain --- Social aspects --- Azaouak Valley (Mali and Niger) --- Azaouak, Vallée de l' (Mali et Niger) --- Social life and customs. --- Moeurs et coutumes --- Niger --- Ethnology. Cultural anthropology --- Developmental psychology --- Human physiology --- Africa --- Mali --- Arab States --- #SBIB:316.7C121 --- #SBIB:39A73 --- #SBIB:39A9 --- Arab women --- Customs, Sex --- Human beings --- Sexual behavior --- Sexual practices --- Islamic women --- Women, Muslim --- Body, Human --- Cultuursociologie: gedragspatronen, levensstijl --- Etnografie: Afrika --- Medische antropologie / gezondheid / handicaps --- Axaouak (Mali and Niger) --- Azaouak (Mali and Niger) --- Azawagh Valley (Mali and Niger) --- Azawak Valley (Mali and Niger) --- Azeouak Valley (Mali and Niger) --- Oued Azaouak (Mali and Niger) --- Vallée de l'Azaouak (Mali and Niger) --- Vallée de l'Azawagh (Mali and Niger) --- Vallée de l'Azawak (Mali and Niger) --- Vallée de l'Azeouak (Mali and Niger) --- Arab states --- Manners and customs --- Moral conditions --- Sex --- Overweight persons --- Women --- Obesity in women --- Body image --- Human anatomy --- Mind and body --- Psychology --- Muslimahs --- Appearance --- Féminité --- Female body --- Book --- Anthropology