This book explores the discursive dynamics that secure a sovereign subject status for the West. It is about the cultural representation of the West to itself by way of a detour through the other. With the proliferation of postcolonial studies, we are witnessing a number of studies investigating the operating principles of Orientalism. Moreover, studies that explicate the articulation of gender with Orientalism are also flourishing. Part of the reason that motivates me to write this book is to provide an analysis of Orientalism that does not relegate the question of sexual difference to a sub-field in the analysis of colonial discourse and this study focuses on the unique articulation of sexual and cultural difference as they are produced and signified in the discourse of Orientalism. I have found that investigations into the question of gender in Orientalism often fall short in recognizing how representations of cultural and sexual difference are constitutive of each other and thus risk reproducing the categorical distinction between the two that feminist theory attempts to combat. With a few exceptions, questions of sexual difference in the discourse of Orientalism are either ignored or, if recognized, understood as an issue which belongs to a different field, namely gender or feminist studies. My decision to explore this question came with an awareness that the critiques of Orientalism and colonial discourse manifest a persistent reluctance to examine the unique nature of the articulation of cultural and sexual difference in the case of Orientalism.