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Bilge's work on sexual nationalism reveals that the meaning/reputation of sex is manipulated by the state to serve its imperial interests. Up until recently, the Orient and the Islamic world were depicted as sexually depraved, rife with polygamy, abuse of women, homosexuality, and effeminacy by the West in order to justify the colonization of it. Today's characterization of the Islamic world still involves the purported mistreatment of women but with a masculinized, sexually repressive coloring instead of an emasculated one. This is perfectly suited to complement the West's new position endorsing liberated female sexuality and homosexuality as markers of democracy instead of decadence (because the state realized that the sexually deviant can be productively valuable too). Through these paradoxical constructions of sexuality, it becomes clear that women's bodies are vessels to project onto ideas of humanist progress that are inherently tied to imperial/nationalist agendas.