Putting the Harem under the microscope makes a lot of orientalist myths

collapse and helps us reach some usefully conclusions about the nature of the
Ottoman society. First of all, the mythology of the harem, full of sexual
connotations and lustful fantasies, is inaccurate. The imperial harem, as any
other harem in the Muslim world, included also women whose relationship with
the master lacked any sexual component. In addition to this, few of the hundred
concubines of the palace