There is a general perception in Egypt today, shared by fans and many critics, that “old” Egyptian films depicted sex more tastefully than recent films. The following passage by critic Hisham Lashin is typical:

Until approximately the middle of the 1960s, the Egyptian cinema treated the subject of sex with extreme caution, without frankly depicting it. There was an exaggerated delicacy, an excessive romanticism, in the way such films as Salah Abu Sayf’s Shabab Imra’a (A Woman’s Youth) dealt with this type of sensitive relationship. [1]