A Graphic Illustration of Why There is So Much Sexual Content on the Internet

February hasn't been a great blogging month. I lost a couple of days to a bug and much of the country was iced, snowed, or otherwise weathered out of the picture for a while. On the weekend I did a routine check of blog  traffic and found it was low on this site and others. I've talked about the situations in Egypt and Syria, a fair amount of cultural stuff, the Bouteflika-Mediene power struggle in Algeria, and other serious matter, though little has been exciting. Traffic on the blog has been a few hundred visits a day, the extremely low end of normal.

Then we learned that Lebanese Olympic skier Jackie Chamoun had once taken her top off for a ski calendar photoshoot. Though the photos I posted here were in the Sports Illustrated  Swimsuit issue level of peek-a-boo suggestiveness at best, the whole Chamoun issue went viral due to a "making of" video which she says was not to be made public,  I had one critical comment on the post, criticizing me for "bashing" Ms. Chamoun while I thought I was defending her. That post went up late on the night of February 10. The next day I got 1,242 visits and 1,504 pageviews; the following day 942 visits and 1,093 pageviews. Not my all-time high or even close, but pretty impressive for February. I later had a follow-up post on the surge of support for her. (And Sports Minister Faisal Karami, who called for an investigation, is not in the newly-named Cabinet.)

The graph above is Google Analytics'  trace of the first two weeks of February's blog traffic, showing the Chamoun surge. [Update: off blog I've had comments about the shape of the graph. Take a cold shower and get a girlfriend.]

 Lebanese traffic also increased, Lebanon rising to number 7 in my source countries. It may have risen that high in the past, but not for quite a while. The English-speaking countries (US, UK, Canada and Australia: where are you, New Zealanders?) plus Egypt, Israel, the UAE, Germany, and lately Turkey (which used to block all Blogger sites) usually dominate, but this propelled Lebanon up the ranks.

In the top 10 Google search words included all of the following:

Jackie Chamoun (the number one search)
Jackie Chamoun topless
Jacky Chamoun
Jacky Chamoun topless
Jackie Chamoun nudity

Five in the top ten; three in the top four. Most do not appear to relate to her Olympic ski performance; she didn't actually ski till the weekend. None said "Jackie Chamoun Olympic ski results."

Now, don't read this as meaning that my readers are basically all lecherous males looking for not-very-revealing pictures; it's more a function of lecherous males looking for not-very-revealing pictures who never heard of this blog before finding it through Google.

On the other hand, among my highest-ranking posts for all time are those dealing with Aliaa Elmahdy, though again her actual nudity never appeared on the blog. So talking about nudity works.

We all know sex sells. Apparently naked, or topless, Arab women draw traffic. (Who'd have thunk it?) In my original post I said that the still pics were mild and only the video showed much, and commented:

I still think it's rather mild: there are a few shots, at some distance, where you seem to see her breasts fully, but unless you're really good at stop-motion screen shots, if this is the only way you can find nudity (with nipples: see above) on the Internet, you're doing it wrong. I find it innocent enough to post here.

I underestimated the lechery of the Internet: of course there are now tons of screencaps showing blurry shots of Ms. Chamoun's breasts. You won't find them here, as I'm respecting her Facebook request not to circulate them further, and if blurred distant toplessness is the best you can do you don't understand the Internet; but I fear she's paying the price of being photographed in revealing ways, even if not for publication. Once a photo or a video is on the Internet, it will never entirely disappear. I still don't think she did anything wrong: actresses in Arab films and music videos sometimes appear seemingly topless, though only their back is shown; I assume the cameramen and director saw more. (And a few have survived "sex tape" scandals, though without the career boost that seems to create in the West). Ms. Chamoun did not think the "making of" video would ever appear, and the calendar, if coy, was unrevealing. The biggest "boobs" in this story are her critics.

Despite the huge surge last week, I am not taking from it the lesson that this should be a sex blog, or start running a Page Three Girl if we had pages.The Middle East Institute tolerates my rather broad "social and cultural" mission definition, but I'm not going to push it. (There aren't enough topless Arab women anyway.) But if you wonder why there's so much sexual content on the Internet, I think the graph above is revealing. It draws traffic.

After Sports Minister's Remarks, Lebanese Social Media Spring to Defense of Jackie Chamoun

The age of social media makes it harder for government officials to escape ridicule when they act stupidly. I already noted a couple of days ago that the fuss over pictures of Lebanese Olympic skier Jackie Chamoun was being blown out of proportion in the Lebanese press; then Caretaker Youth and Sports Minister Faisal Karami chimed in, saying the photos would damage Lebanon's international image and saying he had telephoned the International Olympic Committee to ask for an investigation.

Comments on social media were quick to note that there have been a number of deadly car bombings lately in Lebanon as well as a couple of recent wife murders that went unpunished, and that maybe some cheesecake pictures of an attractive athlete weren't really the biggest threat to the country's reputation. And that "Caretaker" in Karami's title stems from the fact that Lebanon has gone without a government for ten months now; but then, as Qifa Nabki noted recently, it's also been the case for two and a half out of the last four years.
As for Chamoun herself, she apologized on her Facebook page, noting that the photos were old, that the actual calendar photos were not that revealing, and that the video of the "making of" the calendar was not supposed to be made public.  She said:

 I just want to make it clear to everyone who commented, shared the photos that appeared on the net in Lebanon yesterday. Yes I did photos for an Austrian ski calendar with other professional athletes 3 years ago. The photos of the photoshoot are not like the actual images that are now circulating on the net. The video and photos that you are now seeing are part of the making off, the preparation, it wasn’t supposed to go public. Anyways, I want to apologize to all of you, I know that Lebanon is a conservative country and this is not the image that reflects our culture. I fully understand if you want to criticise this.

Now that I’m at the Olympic Games, these photos that I never saw before are being shared. It is sad. All I can ask to each of you who saw this, is to stop spreading it, it will really help me focusing on what is really important now: my trainings and race.

In fact, not only did the comments on her post appear to be mostly favorable,  but Lebanese took to social media with a #StripforJackie campaign, posting pictures of themselves discreetly covered by strategically placed protest signs; bloggers also sprang to her defense, and Lebanon Now editorialized with these words and photo, in an editorial entitled "Boobs over Bullets; Gold over Graft":

Jackie Chamoun, one of two alpine skiers representing Lebanon at the Sochi Olympics, has come under fire for exposing herself (or part of herself) in a photo shoot a few years ago. In turn, her critics have come under fire for targeting “boobs instead of bombs.” Meanwhile, the Lebanese Minister of Youth and Sports has called upon Lebanese Olympic officials to investigate matters to uphold Lebanon’s reputation. (Incidentally, as many others have pointed out, that reputation would be a lot nicer without the cartels, bombings, killings, kidnappings, gun running, drug smuggling, corruption, poor roads, lack of power, inconsistent water supply, and declining quality of hummus.)

Lebanon Now Website

Furthermore, some Lebanese commercial products also joined in the #StripforJackie protest on their websites and social media pages, including Almaza beer, posing without its label:

Roughly, "don't take my clothes off."

The whole "scandal" isn't a scandal and henceforth I think we should respect Ms. Chamoun's request and let her concentrate on the ski slopes. And I hope all the humor has put Mr. Karami's indignation in proper perspective.

Lebanon Sent Two Athletes to Sochi and There's Already a "Scandal" About One of Them

If you've been watching the Olympics in Sochi (and it's pretty hard to avoid), you already know that this is not the Middle East's thing, exactly. Despite the famous Jamaican bobsled team, the Saudis don't do the luge, skiing is scarce in Libya. and nobody including me has a clue about curling. Of the 88 countries participating at Sochi, only two are Arab: Lebanon and Morocco. Israel. Iran, and Turkey are there, as are Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. who are all in the neighborhood. Some Central Asian countries are there too.

By an odd coincidence last week my staff was poking around in the Middle East Institute's attic and found a 1946 book in Arabic on "Winter Sports in Lebanon," and this post relates to the Lebanese Olympic team.

Jackie with skies and not much else

Lebanon sent two athletes to compete at Sochi: skiers Alexandre Mohat and Jackie Chamoun, Another skier who is in the Olympic delegation from Lebanon, Chirine Njeim, and who competed in Vancouver in 2010 but isn't skiing this year, and Chamoun, are the center of the controversy. Apparently last year they posed for a calendar in Switzerland for photographer/Olympic skier Hubertus von Hohenlohe, a German prince who is representing Mexico in Sochi (I'm not making this up), and in the stills from the shoot, Chamoun appears topless. I say "appears" because, in most of the stills at least, her hands,arms, or ski are strategically placed. We aren't in Playboy territory here but in Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue world, with hands, hair, etc. keeping things, in US movie-rating terms, PG-13 rather than R.

A Lebanese media site, Al-Jadid Sport reported today what was already apparently old news: that Chamoun and Njeim had  posed for the calendar, calling it a scandal, and so on. Bloggers aren't as sure, and part of the issue is what "topless" means, since Western models at least often pose showing parts but not all of their "top" and aren't  considered to have done nudity. (In the US at least the distinction seems to be, frankly, whether you can see nipples. If not, it's seemingly OK for broadcast TV.) (Of course it makes no sense, but don't complain to me.)

How scandalous exactly is this "side-boob" shot?

Jackie is clearly enough topless in this picture but not frontally so: is that as objectionable? Oh, EEK! She's topless! Yes, but showing only what the American tabloids call "sideboob," a useful if inelegant term. It's unclear as to why Americans seem to be OK with seeing almost all the breast except for the nipple before they complain "she's naked" (over here, "pastie" means something quite different than it does in Cornwall: a small application pasted over the nipple), but that's how it is. Europeans don't seem to obsess as much on the nipple, but Americans do. Chamoun is within the acceptable range in the still photos..

Hizbullah (less tolerant than even puritanical Americans) is not going to like it back home, but her name indicates she's Christian, and Lebanon has a tradition of sexual edginess.

In fact, she has already discussed the photo shoot with NBC, which handles the official US Olympic coverage:

Hubertus mentioned that you posed for his Ski Instructors calendar. What was that like and did you get the chance to talk with him at all about his Olympic experiences?

Hubertus is a good friend of mine. He came to Lebanon for international competitions and I also saw him at the World Championships in Val d’Isere in 2009 and the Olympics in 2010. We stayed in contact and he was in Serbia when I was there racing. He is a really good friend and he is very passionate about what he does, whether it is sport or the Olympics or photography. It is nice to see people who are older and still want more and don’t want to stop because they love the sport so much.

So, Hubertus came to Lebanon because he did a video show about Beirut and he also did this calendar. Chirine and I were in the calendar. We met him on the slopes. Of course it was a strange feeling to be on the slopes of Lebanon and produce this calendar, but it was great to be with Hubertus and his crew. It was a great experience and a lot of fun.

When you say it was weird, what do you mean?

First because it was… I did photos before for a Lebanese magazine and advertisements but not these kind of photos. The other weird thing was that I knew everybody at the ski resort. I knew all the skiers who were passing. I could see other skiers. I could see the parents of other skiers. I could see my coaches, everyone. When you get there, you are like, ‘No, what am I doing? Maybe I shouldn’t do this.’ But then you go with it and have fun.

Was it a positive experience?

Uhh, yes.

Why the hesitation?

(laughs) It was positive for me. I don’t regret it at all. When I started my job, for example, people when they search for me on the web sometimes they can see these pictures directly so you think maybe it’s not the best thing, not the best image you can give someone of you. But, I don’t really care, though. I really enjoyed it and I don’t regret it. I like these photos. I have no problem with it.

Was it difficult to do in a country like Lebanon which is more conservative than a lot of other counties in the world?

Yes. If we were somewhere else in Lebanon, in a public place, maybe they would have shooted us. But we were on the slope in Faraya and it is an open space. The people who go there are people from Beirut who are open-minded, more international in their thinking, and also the jet-set of Lebanon so it wasn’t a problem there. It’s really open there, like in Europe. In other places we could have been in really big trouble.

What did your parents say?

My dad wasn’t happy with it at all (laughs). He didn’t want me to do it, but my mom was okay with it.

Fair enough, I'd say. Here, for the record, is her fellow Lebanese Olympian Cherine Njeim, also under-dressed for the weather:

Also, I feel, in the PG-13 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue range of objectionableness. 

To be fair to the critics, there is a "making of" video out there on YouTube which does appear to show more of Jackie than the stills do. I still think it's rather mild: there are a few shots, at some distance, where you seem to see her breasts fully, but unless you're really good at stop-motion screen shots, if this is the only way you can find nudity (with nipples: see above) on the Internet, you're doing it wrong. I find it innocent enough to post here.


I find this a teapot tempest. Like many attractive athletes before and since, Jackie and Cherine are teasing their fans. Hardly a "scandal."

Let the Games Begin: But Remember Those Who Were There First

Kizbech Tuguzhoko

Kizbech Tuguzhoko (also Tuguzhoko Kizbech), the fellow at left, may prove to be a specter haunting the Sochi Olympics. A member of the Shapsug tribe of the Circassian or Adyghe people ("Circassian" also applies to speakers of the related Kabardian language), he led the resistance to Russian expansion into Circassia until his death in 1840. A generation later, the conquest was complete, and in 1864 the Russian state began the systematic expulsion of most of the Circassian population. That was in 1864, 150 years before the Olympics will open in Sochi, the Russian town that arose in the old Shapsug territory. Most Circassians settled in the Ottoman Empire; many Shapsugs settled in Amman, Jordan, which has more Circassians today than Sochi does. Perhaps 1.5 million people were relocated from various parts of the Caucasus when Russia conquered their territories. In Turkey, Jordan, and other former Ottoman lands, some members of the Circassian diaspora have protested Sochi as an Olympic venue, as I've noted previously. But Sochi has also led to a revived consciousness of Circassian identity elsewhere, as in this article on Circassians in Turkey.

Now, no one really expects the Russians to promote the Sochi Games as "The Sesquicentennial of Circassian Ethnic Cleansing." But I also will be surprised if today's opening ceremonies even show any hint of those who were pushed out 150 years ago. Some in the Circassian diaspora have even claimed that the Olympic site is built over the site of a mass grave from the Russo-Circassian War, but I do not know if that is the case. What you're unlikely to see at the opening is a lot of Circassians.

P.N. Grunitzky, The Mountaineers Leave the Aul*

The Adyghe can be traced back as a continuous culture more or less to the Neolithic, but after a 100 Years War from the 1760s to the 1860s, those left alive were transferred by the victorious Tsarist Russian regime to the Ottoman Empire, which had at least a tenuous theoretical sovereignty over the region. (Though as Russia has learned in nearby Chechnya and Dagestan, mountaineers in the Caucasus are hard to control effectively.) (* Picture note: An aul was a fortified village.)

There is still an Adyghia Republic within the Russian Federation, but it does not include Sochi. There are still many Circassians in Russia, but not on the Black Sea Coast where Sochi stands. The size of the diaspora is hard to estimate, due to intermarriage and the fact that the Arabic and Turkish words Tcherkess, variously spelled, is sometimes used to refer to Chechens and other Caucasians speaking unrelated languages.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest population is in Turkey, the nearest part of the Ottoman realm to Old Circassia; in the Arab Levant, Jordan has the biggest population by far, but there are significant populations in Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and to a lesser extent Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, and even Egypt. One still meets the occasional red-haired and blue-eyed Turk or Arab who is stereotypically Circassian, but most aren't that distinguishable from their neighbors. But they remember their past.

This CBC article looks at the way indigenous culture was handled t the 2010 Vancouver games and quotes:

Canadian scholar John Colarusso argues that Russia should take a similar approach to the Vancouver Olympics in its opening ceremony – prominently embracing and showcasing indigenous culture.

The 2010 Vancouver Games marked the first time in the Olympics history that indigenous people were recognized as official partners. Four First Nations bands also played prominent roles in the opening ceremony.

Well, yes, but British Columbia's history of treatment of its indigenous people, whom it now calls First Nations, is very different from that of Russia in the Caucasus, or for that matter a certain neighbor of Canada's to the south. (Hint: where did Sitting Bull go after the Custer battle? Canada, of course, which took him in.). It would be wonderful if Sochi emulated Vancouver. And if Vladimir Putin rode at the head of the opening parade on a unicorn. I don't expect we'll see either.

Next fantasy? We can, however, remember that Sochi was built on land which until just 150 years ago (again let me emphasize the 150th anniversary is THIS YEAR, which particularly offends Circassians).

Old Circassia around 1740: (this and all other pictures in this post are from Wikimedia Commons.)