El-Rouayheb of Harvard University called the book, "A pioneering work on a very timely yet frustratingly neglected topic. ... I know of no other study that can even begin to compare with the detail and scope of [this] work." Samia Mehrez, a professor of Arabic Literature at the American University in Cairo writes in the Journal of Gender Studies: Desiring Arabs by Joseph Massad is an impressive project that ventures into uncharted territory and can be read as a complement to both Edward Said's Orientalism and Michel Foucault's work on sexuality. Like all of Massad's work, Desiring Arabs investigates the discursive and institutional continuum through which culture is 'invented' under both colonial rule through colonial practices that sought to reify racial and religious differences as well as through the cultural politics of the post-colonial nation state and its efforts to consolidate the nation, national identity, and national belonging. Ferial Ghazoul in the Journal of Arabic Literature, writes: While there has been a clear consensus on the book's significant scholarly contributions, some of the book's theses have been criticized by Rayyan Al-Shawaf, a freelance writer and reviewer living in Beirut, who concedes that Massad makes a few good points, but observes that "Massad's relativism – stemming from his accurate observation that 'homosexuality' is alien to Arab same-gender sexual traditions – is so extreme that he refuses to support a call for universal freedom of sexual identity." Al-Shawaf argues that, In postulating the inevitability of (heterosexual) Arab violence wherever there is gay and lesbian assertiveness, Massad pre-emptively exonerates the perpetrators – whether individuals or the state – of any wrongdoing. However regrettable their behaviour, those Arabs who react violently to the gay rights campaign are not perceived by Massad as responsible for their actions, but as caught up in a broader struggle against 'imperialism', to which the gay rights movement is wedded. Brian Whitaker criticized Massad for, in his view, repeating a common view of Arab nationalists and Islamists which essentially believes LGBT+ activism or identities are the result of a conspiracy by Western forces imposing themselves into Arab or Muslim societies. Massad ascribes this to Orientalist, colonial impulses, but Whitaker notes he cites no evidence of such motives, or a supposed excessive attention by what Massad calls the "Gay International" (LGBT+ rights groups) and human rights organizations on such societies. He is also critical of Massad seeming to present "the West"